Eric Klos, CEO, HEALTHeWeather
May 4th, 2018 — Asheville, NC — Not being a climatologist, meteorologist, or environmental health specialist is a challenge when you are trying to raise awareness of the exposure impacts of the weather and the environment on health. However, that’s because the model for the distribution of weather and environmental knowledge and information is based on old power. We have a system that distributes weather and environmental exposure information to the masses when in fact individuals are sensitive to these exposures uniquely.
Our physician-centered healthcare system runs on old power. In New Power, by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, they explain;
“Physicians have become accustomed to being keepers of medical knowledge, distanced from their patients by a hyphenated lexicon and inscrutable prescriptions.”
In the case of environmental factors, if physicians did not understand the impacts of outdoor weather or environmental exposures on an asthma patient, or they felt the correlation was insufficiently validated, it was neglected. Asthma educators arose, in part, because physicians were not sufficiently educating patients about the triggers that could cause negative health outcomes. This is in part because we lacked the infrastructure that is emerging today; wearable sensors, big data, and machine learning that could inform physicians of the exposure impacts on their patient.