About
Imperative Foundation
The Imperative Foundation is a new foundation. In early 2024, an application was made for a 501(c)(3) status. We anticipate receiving a confirmation letter by the fall of 2024.
Donations made to the Foundation will become tax deductible after the 501(c)(3) status is granted by the IRS.
This website is a preliminary website and will be revised and expanded over the next several months
History
The following narrative by Tom Coleman, President of the Imperative Foundation, explains the history and background to forming the Imperative Foundation.
I began my business career working for the health care division of a corporate conglomerate. After leaving the corporation, I was founder of a medical device company that was acquired by a European pharmaceutical company and served as a board member and advisor to early-stage health care companies and an information technology company.
From my earliest experiences in health care, it was evident the cost of U.S. health care would become increasingly unaffordable for citizens and employers and Medicare and Medicaid.
Within the health care industry, there was an expectation that by the late 1990s or early 2000s, the financial pain of ever-spiraling health care costs would compel our elected representatives in congress to transition the nation to a universal health care system covering all citizens.
That never happened. Instead, the costs kept increasing as the quality was declining.
The Impact
Without cost containment programs and failure to transition to an effective universal health care system, U.S. health care became the most lucrative and profitable market for the health care industry…. at the expense of citizens, employers, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Increasing Quality And Reducing Costs
After leaving the corporation, I began to explore how the quality of health care could be increased and health care costs reduced.
An early focus was on the need for an advanced computer system to assist physicians in defining the correct diagnosis and treatment of diseases and conditions.
Too often, substantial amounts of time and capital are wasted in a search for cause of the patient’s illness by administering test after test that may or may not result in the correct diagnosis and proper treatment.
Medical Knowledge
In 1950, medical knowledge doubled every fifty years (link). By 2000, medical knowledge doubled every 73 days. Presently, medical knowledge is likely doubling in less than 40 days.
Current medical knowledge, daily inflow of new data and knowledge and the obsolescence of previous knowledge, makes it impossible for physicians to have absolute current knowledge, even in narrow fields of practice.
What was and remains needed, is an advanced computer system, able to access all current medical knowledge and provide that knowledge to physicians in an easily accessible and user-friendly manner. This would enable a physician to compare a patient’s symptoms, medical history, and medical tests against the computer system’s database of current knowledge. The computer system would guide the physician to efficiently narrow down potential issues and define the optimal diagnosis and prescribe the optimal treatment.
After meeting with software and computer firms of the time, it was evident the needed technologies to aggregate, process, store, and deliver massive amounts of medical information were decades in the future.
Big Data, Machine Learning, And Artificial Intelligence
In the subsequent years, I followed the progress of programs in big data, machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. Big data refers to large and complex data sets – such as those in health care – that cannot be handled by standard data-process software.
Machine learning, a precursor to artificial intelligence, made significant progress in the 1990s. By 2000s, development of deep learning created considerable advances in text and visual processing. A few years prior to 2020, it was clear that artificial intelligence would soon emerge.
Employers Rebell Against Health Care Costs
In early 2018, three major U.S. companies formed a joint venture to reduce their health care costs. One of the corporate CEOs described the U.S. health care system as the “tapeworm eating the economy.”
It was my belief that their joint venture project would fail. You cannot reform U.S. health care by trying to change elements on the edges. You need to change the core of health care.
A few months after the project’s formation, I sent the CEOs and principals of the project, a long essay on how an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system could achieve the reformation of U.S. health care, increase its quality and delivery and reduce the costs of health care. Included in the essay were patient stories I had collected over the years, illustrating how AI would have benefited the patient and the overall health care system.
Unfortunately, the corporate joint venture’s focus was only on reducing the health care costs of the three companies, not the greater health care system. After failing to achieve its objectives, the joint venture project was closed down.
Artificial Intelligence
After decades of scientific and industrial research, AI and quantum technologies began to generate some promising, but early results. This began to awaken national governments and the industrial sector as to their potential.
By 2019, the U.S. made AI a national priority (link). AI and quantum technologies are part of the nation’s “Critical and Emerging Technologies List” (link). It is broadly acknowledged, the nation’s ability to develop and apply advanced AI and quantum technologies will define much of our nation’s social and economic development and national security for the next century.
U.S. Health Care As The Platform
I continued working on a proposal on how the nation’s national priorities in AI and quantum technologies could be achieved by developing AI for health care. In 2018 I began writing to management of companies who were active in health care reform. In 2019 I broadened my efforts by contacting technology companies and foundations with a focus on health care. By 2020, I had developed a presentation with a long title:
U.S. Health Care, The Platform For Capitalization And Development Of Advanced Artificial Intelligence And Quantum Technologies In Order To Increase The Quality And Delivery Of U.S. And Global Health Care And Mitigate Future Pandemics And Global Health Threats
The public private partnership (PPP) page provides additional detail as to the rationale to use health care as the platform and how on development costs can be recouped.
Forming The Imperative Foundation
The U.S. Health Care As The Platform…. presentation was sent to about twenty people, including senators, former cabinet members, other political leadership, and AI advocates. None responded, save one senator’s chief of staff, which resulted in a conversation with the senator’s health policy person. I was advised that reforming the health care system was not in the senator’s policy interest.
After these experiences, I recognized that only a national alliance of proactive citizens, employers, and communities can bring about reform of U.S. health care and a transition to an effective universal health care system.
The Imperative Foundation was formed to accomplish this mission.