Pictures of the Future     Spring 2007

A Long and Healthy Life

The generation pyramid is changing shape. Fewer children and increasing numbers of old people are turning it upside down. The average life expectancy in industrialized countries today is approximately 80 years—twice as high as it was just a century ago. In 2050, there will be more people aged 60 and older worldwide than children under the age of 15. According to statistics compiled by the United Nations, people over 80 are the fastest-growing age group. And their number is expected to double worldwide by 2015 and quadruple by 2050.

A long life is obviously something everyone would like to have. But longevity harbors tremendous challenges for society at large. For example, average worldwide per capita healthcare expenditures for people over 75 years of age are five times higher than those for people aged 25 to 34. If we wish to keep healthcare costs affordable in spite of demographic change, we need solutions that offer enhanced quality of care at lower cost. That applies in particular to the rapidly increasing incidence of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

Our goal must be to continue offering people unlimited access to top-quality medicine in the future—and I’m convinced that this will be possible if we lay the groundwork today. The key to success is patient-focused healthcare that is highly efficient and utilizes the most effective processes available. Molecular medicine and ultramodern information technology will play key roles in this process. The rapid growth rates of these markets—10 % annually for medical IT and up to 14 % for some of the core fields of molecular medicine—confirm that our healthcare systems are in a state of transition.

Developments in the field of molecular medicine are extremely promising, as evidenced in several articles in this issue of Pictures of the Future (Molecular Medicine). Particularly through the combination of laboratory diagnostics and molecular imaging, molecular medicine offers tremendous potential for diagnosing diseases at an earlier stage of development. As a result, they can be treated more effectively and economically. Besides, molecular medicine opens up a broad new field: a more personalized type of therapy that takes into account the individual patient’s predispositions and health history, thereby making treatment more efficient (see Interview with Prof. Ganten).

The second engine of change in the healthcare sector is information technology. By contributing to the smooth exchange of data between clinics, doctors’ offices, pharmacies and health maintenance organizations, IT makes processes faster and more efficient. In addition, it helps users to organize the flood of data that is generated by modern imaging processes and molecular medicine.

After all, illnesses such as cancer and heart disease are generated by the interaction of many genes and proteins. Knowledge databases and computer-supported analytic processes open up the possibility of identifying these connections and diagnosing genetically determined health risks even before such diseases break out, so that countermeasures can be taken early on (see Knowledge-Based IT).

These new technologies will inaugurate a change away from a reactive approach to medicine that intervenes only when symptoms appear, and toward a knowledge-based preventive kind of medicine in the future. Information technology will also help older and chronically ill people to continue living in their own homes with as much fulfillment as possible, thanks to processes of self-diagnosis, monitoring and telemedicine (see Telemedicine).

Siemens has done a great deal in recent months to identify the crucial trends in all these areas of healthcare. For example, in addition to acquiring CTI in the field of molecular imaging and biomarkers, it has also acquired DPC and Bayer Diagnostics in the area of laboratory diagnostics. As a result, Siemens Medical Solutions has become the first company in the healthcare sector that is capable of offering a comprehensive diagnostics chain incorporating all of the key solutions of in vitro and in vivo diagnostics in connection with information technology.

With almost 7,000 researchers working on the development of medical systems around the world, we are confident that we can live up to our role as a trendsetter and generator of medical progress in the future as well—for the good of our partners, customers and countless other people all over the world.