Original 2021 statement: The volume of medical knowledge will have doubled by the time you re-read this post 78 days from now
What Jim has written about this
From “Daily Inspiration: “Learn more stuff. Empty minds bring empty results!”” (January 2022)
One of my favorite trends I’ve covered for a long time has been the issue of knowledge.
… the rate of discovery based on research into gene variants for common diseases is increasing rapidly: One or two were discovered each year beginning in 2000; thousands were discovered in 2007. “ This knowledge reorients the entire medical system, from one where patients are treated once they are sick to one where patients are treated for what they are likely to develop as a result of their genetic makeup. The volume of medical knowledge is doubling every eight years, and similar changes are occurring in other trades and professions .”
It is now estimated that with Covid-19, the volume of medical knowledge is now doubling every 78 days, up from eight years pre-pandemic. Similar fields are seeing similar exponential growth rates.
From “Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”” (January 2023)
As I close out this series of 23 Trends for 2023, I’ve been thinking long and hard as to what the final, all-encompassing trend should be; to be honest, I’ve had several. But they’ve all had a common theme - all of us finally have the chance to look forward to what’s next , rather than just concentrating right now on what we need to do to get through. In a conference call with a client the other day, I was given a gift when he mentioned that in his mind, they weres finally able to move away from triage - fast, quick steps to simply survive - to thinking about their future again. That’s it!
With that in mind, here’s an older post I wrote some years ago, ’ 101 Things We Know About Our Future’ - An Esoteric List of Things That Are Happening Now and Next! ’ It provides some food for thought on what we might be thinking about as we move from triage to tomorrow!
The volume of known medical knowledge is increasing 48% annually, going from 153 exabytes in 2013 to 2,514 exabytes in 2020
From “Trend: What’s the Impact of the Era of Knowledge Acceleration? None of Us Have the Capability to Know Much of Anything at All!” (April 2022)
- Knowledge is growing exponentially . For example, the rate of discovery based on research into gene variants for common diseases is increasing rapidly: One or two were discovered each year beginning in 2000; thousands were discovered in 2007. “ This knowledge reorients the entire medical system, from one where patients are treated once they are sick to one where patients are treated for what they are likely to develop as a result of their genetic makeup. The volume of medical knowledge is doubling every eight years, and similar changes are occurring in other trades and professions .”
- The velocity of knowledge is accelerating . The typical video game makes 60 to 70 percent of its money in the first four or five days after it is released. Everything is focused on maximizing revenue at the beginning. The next generation of televisions, LED televisions, is expected to have only 18 to 24 months to maximize revenue before they are obsolete and replaced by the next generation of televisions. “Ideas can go from concepts to an industry literally overnight. Anyone can put an idea out into the global idea machine where someone else can grab it and build on it. Knowledge is being impacted by velocity .”
“ But it’s not just happening with them. There is a prediction that in the U.S., 60 percent of consulting engineers will be freelancers — nomadic workers for hire — making their specialized skills available to organizations on a just-in-time basis. Do you think a lot of Fortune 1000 companies will hire full-time employees after the current economic situation is resolved? No, because they will recognize the cost of employees in terms of health care and other long-term investment. Increasingly, American workers will become nomadic workers for hire. We are witnessing the end of the concept of the organization as we know it. As far back as 1987, an op-ed in the New York Times referenced a ‘world without walls ,’ where corporations would hire people with specialized skills on a demand basis. What’s fascinating here is that we are seeing the development of the extreme specialist at the same time that we see the emergence of the extreme knowledge generalist. For example, “hospitalists”: People who understand all the medical specialists and understand how hospitals work ; their role is to guide patients through the increasing complexities of the system. This career is expected to grow from the current 12,000 hospitalists to 130,000 by 2010. We have to acknowledge these two key trends — the fast emergence of niche skills deployment and the emergence of masters of generalization — to determine how to educate people to simply understand the high-velocity knowledge niching that is occurring in the world today. ”
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Daily Inspiration: “Learn more stuff. Empty minds bring empty results!”
Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”
Trend: What’s the Impact of the Era of Knowledge Acceleration? None of Us Have the Capability to Know Much of Anything at All!