Not so elementary, my dear Watson

Abstract

“eHealth” and “Precision Medicine” are two major concepts in the new medical discourse. There are several signs of the implementation of a public policy generated around them. In this paper I present some of these signs, starting from the experience of attending a course on digital health and precision medicine directed to train leaders in this area. The reflection on the effects of these signals on populations and individuals’ lives suggests the presence of an ambivalence in the motivations that underpin the public policy discourse on eHealth and precision medicine which results as an overvaluation of health systems’ management economic aspects and an undervaluation of flexibility in healthcare providing resulting in a misadjustement to the necessarily ecological nature of individuals’ and populations’ lives.