Picture this: there’s a dangerous cliff where people keep falling off. Instead of building guardrails at the top, we set up ambulances at the bottom. Every time someone falls, we rush in, stabilize them, and send them back up the hill—only to see them tumble down again. That’s how healthcare operates today. We are obsessed with sick care.
We wait until patients are sick, overwhelmed, or back in the ER—then we step in. But what if we stopped waiting? What if we built the guardrails patients actually need?
That’s the difference between Medicine 2.0 and Medicine 3.0—a shift from reactive, episodic care to proactive, holistic, patient-centric guidance. And it’s the shift healthcare desperately needs.
In healthcare, we often pride ourselves on the advancements made within the walls of hospitals and clinics. We measure, analyze, and optimize every aspect of patient care during their visits. We’ve added robotic surgery and nurses, AI scribes and diagnostic tools, “smart” hospital rooms, point-of-care diagnostics (think: covid swab), and more.
Yet, the truth remains: health outcomes, the real, tangible improvements in a patient’s health do not occur in the clinical setting. They happen in the daily lives of patients, in their homes, workplaces, and communities.
And therein lies healthcare’s greatest challenge: being notoriously bad at measuring patient progress outside of the clinical setting.
How can we manage what we can't measure?
Right now, we give patients a paper map and hope they find their way. Medicine 3.0 gives them a GPS—one that recalibrates when they drift off course and guides them every step of the way.
Healthcare providers have long relied on clinical metrics and technological advancements within the four walls of the clinic to gauge patient progress—blood pressure readings, lab results, imaging studies. But here’s the truth: health outcomes don’t happen in the clinic. They happen in real life.
So then, what happens when the patient steps outside? Are they taking their meds? Are they sleeping, eating, moving, or coping in ways that support their recovery? Are they adhering to whatever care plan their provider prescribed?
The reality is that most of what determines a person’s health happens outside of the clinic. Social determinants of health, factors like housing, nutrition, stress, transportation, and safety, play a massive role in outcomes, yet they’re rarely captured in the patient’s chart, or at best, they’re captured very simply.
We’re left managing a fraction of the story.
Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for a second. We talk a lot about physical health: getting someone the right medications, the right surgeries, the right treatment. But what if they’re emotionally unsafe, or without shelter or food?
If someone is struggling to meet their basic physiological or emotional needs, they can’t fully engage in their care plan. If their foundational needs aren't being met, like food, shelter, stability, love, and purpose, then that care plan is sitting on shaky ground at best.
Great care isn’t just clinical. It’s relational, navigational, and responsive. If we truly want better outcomes, we need to stop assuming patients can fill in the blanks. We need to give them a system that sees and responds to the full picture.
Traditional healthcare systems were not built to track life as it’s lived. Electronic health records (EHRs) are great for documenting visits but fall flat when it comes to capturing a patient’s day-to-day experience. Time constraints, staffing shortages, and fragmented technology make it nearly impossible to follow the full arc of a patient’s health.
Then there’s the patient side: many people don’t have the tools, or the trust and understanding to share what’s really happening. Even when they do, the data often lives in silos or gets lost in translation between apps, devices, and outdated systems.
If we want patients to be active participants in their care, we need to stop assuming they already know how.
Health literacy isn’t achieved with a one-time pamphlet. It’s a continuous, evolving process, especially in a world where chronic conditions are the norm, and misinformation is just a click away. Patients need clear, consistent education to understand their diagnoses, weigh their choices, and track their progress. And providers need to have a window into that data.
But education must be designed for real life. Short, digestible videos instead of printed PDFs and brochures. Reminders, real-time nudges, culturally relevant content, and peer support. Check-ins from the care team.
Engaged patients don’t just check boxes. They ask questions, report what’s not working, and take ownership of their outcomes. But that only happens when we build a system that is rooted in mutual accountability, and teaching, not just treating at the point of care.
This is part of the ethos behind PATHS. PATHS helps practices see beyond episodic care, reimagining patient support as an ongoing relationship, not a series of transactions. It’s a recognition that to truly drive outcomes, we have to embed education directly into the patient’s life.
While the challenge is real, it’s not insurmountable. Here are some ways we can start providing guardrails and closing the gap:
1. Leverage Tech for Real-Life Insights
Wearables, remote monitoring, and mobile health apps give us a window into daily behaviors. But the data must be meaningful, integrated into workflows, and used to drive action.
2. Make Patient Engagement Personal
Education, nudges, and support should meet patients where they are. A one-size-fits-all patient portal isn’t the answer. Real engagement means personalized content and communication that feels human and customized.
3. Adopt Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs)
We need to let patients tell us how they’re doing, instead of relying solely on vitals and blood tests. PROMs give us the context behind the numbers and help capture quality of life, not just quantity of interventions. They focus on general well-being, mental health and/or quality of life.
4. Address the Social Determinants, Seriously
You can’t prescribe housing, but you can screen for instability and connect patients to support. Health systems must treat social needs as clinical risks, and resource them accordingly.
5. Use Data to Predict, Not Just React
Analytics and AI can help flag patients who are quietly drifting off course, before it becomes a costly crisis.
6. Build Trust Through Relationships
People are more likely to share the hard stuff when they feel seen. Consistent follow-ups help build the kind of trust that turns passive patients into engaged ones.
We can’t afford to keep sending ambulances to the bottom of the cliff. Real progress in healthcare means finally building the guardrails patients need before they fall. That starts by expanding our focus from what happens inside the clinic to include what happens between visits, between data points, between the lines of the chart.
PATHS is built for that in-between space by helping practices extend their reach beyond the exam room, embedding education, support, and accountability into the fabric of the patient’s care plan. With PATHS, engagement isn’t an afterthought. It’s an ongoing relationship rooted in mutual accountability between the patient and provider. Patients don’t just receive care, they understand it and participate in it.
It’s time to stop waiting for the fall. With PATHS, we don’t just react, we guide, support, and prevent. Let’s start walking alongside patients before they ever reach the edge.
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