Where I grew up in Ōpaki, ‘healthcare’ was the slow, collective work of holding each other up. Being a kid Ōpaki meant waking up to the sound of firewood being chopped outside. ‘Wellbeing’ was measured in the rates of our neighbour’s waves across the rusty cattlestop, the uptake of the people popping in for some dry ‘chocolate crunch’, and the smell of our Kunekune pigs running freerange through the property.
In Ōpaki, family was Nanny down the road yelling at my brother to piss off when he rode his BMX through her yard in the rain. It was Judy from 2 houses away feeding us her questionable baking whenever she saw us. It was Brian racing down on his quad bike in the middle of the night to save my brothers and I from our campsite near the flooding river.
30 years later, through my lens of public health, those rural roots still shape everything I believe about health. No digital dashboard has ever quite compared to what it meant when my school teacher would come visit at home when I couldn’t make it into school. I can still remember her bringing me a card signed by all my classmates, and some schoolwork I could do in my little spot in the lounge. The thought of care coming to me at home now seems like a pipe dream. Who would be able to accurately measure the risk and cost of coming to see me? What efficiencies could be gained by digitising my healthcare? Has my level of deterioration met the criteria for allowing me home visit?
Sometimes, I have this nagging feeling that health innovations seem to overlook the truth that in places like Ōpaki, prevention and personalisation starts with knowing whose ute that is parked by the dairy, or whose kid is having a hard time at school. The critical nature of whānau and community health seem to get lost in our insatiable digital appetite for data that shouts ‘me, me me!’.
- What’s my AGE’s index?
- How are my antioxidant levels?
- How are my stress levels!
- What’s my metabolic age?
- What’s my sleep animal?
- Me!
- ME!
- MORE ME!
- ALL THE TIME!
What gets measured is what gets managed, and I’m craving more in the way of digital health initiatives which measure the wellness of our whānau and communities. The best technology cannot replace the comfort of a familiar voice down the phone line or the care found in a casserole dropped off at your door. Real and sustained health interventions can be found in a good conversation shared between old friends, the voices at the whānau table, the steady presence of community, and the art of just being present.