Making Health Care Effortless: A Fresh Look at Prevention

Healthcare in the U. S. is often reactive, waiting for problems to arise before taking action. This approach is costly and inefficient, especially when considering the potential of preventive care. The current system struggles to prioritize prevention, with only about 5% of total health spending allocated to it. This gap represents missed opportunities to reduce chronic diseases and avoid hospitalizations, particularly in underserved communities. Preventive care should be as routine as brushing teeth or eating breakfast. However, people often deprioritize it due to busy schedules and financial constraints. For instance, a working mother in her late 50s neglected her health due to family responsibilities, leading to severe respiratory complications from a preventable disease. Similarly, a 30-year-old in a "healthcare desert" missed a flu shot due to limited access to primary care, resulting in illness and lost wages. These examples highlight the need for a new approach to preventive care that is personalized and accessible. Technology can play a significant role in making preventive care more accessible. For example, digital tools like EasyVax help patients find nearby vaccination sites and receive reminders for follow-up doses. This tool empowers people to book appointments directly from their smartphones, bridging a significant gap in preventive care. Nearly 50% of people do not follow through on vaccine recommendations after a doctor's visit, and tools like EasyVax make it easier to take the next step. Investing in prevention yields a strong return not just in healthcare savings but also in productivity and quality of life. Adult vaccination alone delivers a 19:1 return on investment by reducing healthcare costs and improving productivity. In the U. S. , over $9 billion is spent each year on medical costs for vaccine-preventable diseases, 79% of which comes from unvaccinated adults. Personalized experiences are now the norm in many areas of life, and healthcare should be no different. Technology can help deliver timely, personalized health messages that feel natural rather than intrusive. This might include getting a text reminder about a vaccine series or watching an educational video while waiting in line for prescriptions to be filled. The key is integrating health information into everyday routines, so it feels like support and not another task. By working with pharmacies to help deliver these touchpoints, GSK is helping ensure preventive care is more visible, more accessible, and more actionable in people’s daily lives. In addition to consumer-facing tools, healthcare systems can collaborate to make prevention easier and more effective at scale through the use of data and digital integration. This approach helps ensure that prevention isn’t just available but accessible, timely, and personalized across communities. GSK is committed to scaling these efforts, advancing pilot programs, and collaborating across the healthcare ecosystem to reduce preventable illness and ease the burden on our health system.