Dr. Paul Washburn (Health Medical Institute, USA)Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting various industries and fields, including education, government, cybersecurity, sociology, and psychology, as well as the health and business/economy sectors. Research also suggests the strong connection between some of these fields, such as the health and business/economy sectors. As the global workforce is diminishing due to the impact of the pandemic, researchers are starting to question the impacts of the health sector on businesses and economic productivity, namely the value of a healthy workforce. In the IGI Global interview below, hear from Dr. Paul Washburn, from the Health Medical Institute, USA, author of the open access article “Organic Business Modeling and the Organism-Ecosystem Unit Duality: An Analysis of the Consumption to Value Ratios of Economy Subsectors” in the International Journal of Patient-Centered Healthcare (IJPCH) (a hybrid open access journal edited by Dr. Chaojie Wang, from the MITRE Corporation, McLean, USA) regarding his research and the impacts of COVID-19 on these sectors.
Your research uses human health as a base model for economic productivity. Why are these two linked areas of research important to the field at large, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic?
Simply put, all economic prosperity completely depends upon human workers as the corner stone of a valued end-product and for furthering economic prosperity of both themselves and the businesses they operate: banking, healthcare, agriculture, mining, construction, etc. None are absent from their natural personhood (human) and corporate personhood (business) link; all GDP subsectors depend on healthy humans to operate and make decisions daily.
Organic Business Modeling is the base model for all economic evolution and demonstrates a potential violation that has been commonly accepted regarding economic diminishing returns and ripple effect outcomes when viewing economies as a collective of independent variables without a linking, equalizing variable. If there were to be a national or global health-related crisis, all subsectors of every nation would feel the impact from it directly, and indirectly from heavily weighted nations, all in real-time. This impact is exactly what we as a global economy are beginning to see from the very real COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it's the direct impact of the virus on morbidity and mortality in our human populations or simply from the preventive isolation measures observed that are directly reducing national work forces, businesses clearly depend on healthy, performing humans, instead of humans depending on healthy businesses. This contrasts with all other economic subsectors’ end product impact on a national or global level. Even a unified national government's impact on its national and global economy is dwarfed by a healthcare crisis impact as a fundamental truth presents itself: all national governments are operated by human beings that are all in need of healthcare to perform daily functions and their respective government would simply stop functioning if members became incapacitated.
In your opinion, what are some of the benefits of your research to its community of users? How will your research assist the healthcare system, economy, and/or general public during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Organic Business Modeling links all fields of research and is a new door to optimizing modern economics via healthcare as the most heavily weighted, overarching GDP subsector. From a portfolio perspective, an individual human to that of intercontinental national exchanges, either can be retrospectively evaluated and the trajectory of either's failing subsectors can be altered to optimize resource dedication, future novel research breakthroughs, and overall increased GDP productivity. Accountability and value-based decision making can be leveraged more heavily now that a skewed distribution for actual production and value impact can be observed with the understanding that marginal returns may be mitigated. The current healthcare system should hold itself at a higher level of accountability, expectation, and value point, based on the clear evidence presented by Organic Business Modeling. National governments will universally observe the massively weighted impact of healthcare above all others and realize that their individual healthcare system is much more influential and needed than once commonly understood.
Healthcare systems are not simply medical facilities. Healthcare is not simply a service. It leads to a lifestyle for all people that impact their daily function and all business interactions stem from that. If a person’s health is not optimized, then invariably their productivity will follow suit.
Another perspective example of how Organic Business Modeling is useful is when reviewing what actual value-based productivity has been unknowingly forgone over the decades and how to potentially alter real-time production trajectory for mitigating continued prospective losses. The direct evidence that all economic motion rests with functioning businesses operated by a healthy workforce couldn't be clearer than with the current COVID-19 pandemic affecting the global marketplace. A dedication to preventive and lifestyle medicine-based measures will ultimately be the greatest cost reduction for overall value in every GDP sector and easily correct the current economic fallout.
What are the future directions of your research areas, regarding the value of the U.S. healthcare sub-sector and economic variables?
I am currently working on a visual, geometric, volume-based theory to demonstrate how successful healthcare practices inside of a consumptive healthcare market can sustain themselves and become true, value-adding leaders inside of healthcare, while also demonstrating how this sustainability can directly increase productivity in all work spheres of their respective community. I welcome and challenge all fields of research to employ Organic Business Modeling and allow their inspirational concepts to evolve as any human and business duality may allow.
What are some other evolving research trends you have observed in your industry/field over the past several months and what would you say are some of the innovative research directions you foresee in the future? How do you feel your publication sets the pace for these innovations?
The base model of Organic Business Modeling is crucial for all areas of research, as a likely reality has come to fruition that the key architectural corner stone (human health) has been left out of the majority of the business models currently used. Ironically, this is a similar distribution to classic national GDP economic profiles which demonstrates their healthcare subsectors are not their largest subsectors overall and, in turn, may have neglected its importance. One common and very real example is that many businesses offer health insurance for their employees. However, they may purchase the least expensive health insurance plans for cost-cutting, which is simply a cost deferment to the employee, based on high deductibles transferred to the patient and higher annual personal premiums. This causes the employee to not use the healthcare services based on an increased access cost to their healthcare. This cycle perpetuates suboptimal health of employees and directly impacts the businesses end-point value production. The employers in this scenario actually perpetuate poor health and reduced business value overall by undermining the potential abilities of their employees. I, unfortunately, sense a resistance to healthcare change based on business leadership being entrenched in the old ways of fee-for-service reimbursement, high-cost services due to high overhead costs, a generalized basic fear of change, and a sense of overwhelming desire to continue to make money now, despite the downfall in a future time period. Well, I would counter these with – the future is here, and we need sustainable change now for stabilization and growth of every system to even be an available reality tomorrow. I would further like to challenge research visionaries and bright minds on the ground in all economic subsectors to use the Organic Business Modeling principles for maximal positive evolution of their respective fields and to engage healthcare optimization as a potential building block for such valued growth in every national DGP subsector.
What has your experience been like publishing with IGI Global?
I have only had a good experience using IGI Global for publishing materials.
Dr. Washburn's article is found within the International Journal of Patient-Centered Healthcare (IJPCH), which is currently available in electronic (EISBN: 9781522589136) and print (ISBN: 9781522589129) format through IGI Global’s Online Bookstore. To support customers in easily and affordably obtaining titles in electronic format during the COVID-19 pandemic, IGI Global is now offering an automatic 50% discount* on the electronic format of this publication as well as ALL e-books and e-journals ordered directly through IGI Global’s Online Bookstore. Additionally, enjoy a 20% discount on all other products and formats. This publication is also available across preferred providers such as GOBI Library Solutions, EBSCOHost, and Oasis, (Note: The automatic 50% discount is only available through IGI Global’s Online Bookstore), as well as IGI Global’s InfoSci-Journals.
Be sure to purchase or recommend this publication or the InfoSci-Journals database to your library to have access to this critical content.
Interested in submitting an article for consideration to IJPCH? View the Call for Papers here.
IGI Global would like to thank Dr. Paul Washburn for sharing his research on Organic Business Modeling, and the economic and healthcare sectors, especially during this turbulent time. For more information about this research, view the International Journal of Patient-Centered Healthcare (IJPCH) or Dr. Washburn’s open access article.
About Dr. Paul Washburn: Paul Washburn, MD, MPH, DipACLM, DipACPM, is a practicing physician in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. He is the director and creator of the Health Medical Institute, a non-profit medical clinic dedicated to healthcare research,
education, and clinical application. He is formally trained in Internal, Preventive, Lifestyle and Public Health Medicine. His passion is to prevent deterioration of a person’s quality of life and increase their productive value for society at large. He implements traditional internal medicine practices as well as cutting-edge preventive and lifestyle medicine for a truly unique approach to optimal “health-care," not “disease-care”.
For your reference, find below a sample of related titles surrounding healthcare, business, and other related topics being affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic, which are also featured in IGI Global’s InfoSci-Journals database and are available for purchase in print and electronic format. Be sure to recommend these titles to your librarian, to ensure your institution can acquire the most emerging research.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of IGI Global.
About IGI Global: Founded in 1988, IGI Global, an international academic publisher, is committed to producing the highest quality research (as an active full member of the Committee on Publication Ethics “COPE”) and ensuring the timely dissemination of innovative research findings through an expeditious and technologically advanced publishing processes. Through their commitment to supporting the research community ahead of profitability, and taking a chance on virtually untapped topic coverage, IGI Global has been able to collaborate with over 100,000+ researchers from some of the most prominent research institutions around the world to publish the most emerging, peer-reviewed research across 350+ topics in 11 subject areas including business, computer science, education, engineering, social sciences, and more. To learn more about IGI Global, click here.
Newsroom Contact
Caroline Campbell
Marketing Manager
ccampbell@igi-global.com
(717) 533-8845, ext. 144
www.igi-global.com/