Clayton Christensen thinks we suffer from a medical symptom shortage

I'm in D.C. today, and this morning I moderated a panel at the World Health Care Congress featuring Clayton Christensen. Christensen is the inordinately tall Harvard Business School professor who attained official business-guru status with the publication of The Innovator's Dilemma in 1997 and has shown no signs of relinquishing it since. He's got a book coming out in September called The Innovator's Prescription: A disruptive solution to our health care crisis, which is why he was speaking at a health care conference.

I'm pretty dubious of business gurus, but Christensen is really good. He's quiet and sober and calm, but throws in just enough movement and humor to keep you alert, and has some really cool insights. My favorite from this morning was his explanation of why he thought molecular diagnostics and imaging technology were disruptive technologies that would eventually bring down costs dramatically:

"The body has a limited vocabulary of symptoms," he said. "There are not enough symptoms for all the disorders out there." That's why medical care consists of so much trial and error, and why hunches and judgment are such a big part of making correct diagnoses. It's why we need House.

Molecular diagnostics and MRIs and CTs have the potential to make medical diagnosis a far more reliable, rote process. Which you means that most of time you won't need to have doctors doing it anymore. Especially not misanthropic, painkiller-addicted doctors with fake American accents. Which will presumably cut medical costs dramatically.

Or at least, that's Christensen's take. I don't know if it's realistic. But I can report that it sounded mellifluous and wise.