Why futurists start with a backward glance

At the end of 2019, I embarked on a project exploring the future of primary care medicine, looking ahead a decade to imagine stories about innovative home diagnostics, expanded virtual care, and transformative shifts in delivery models. Then came COVID-19. “What might be” was suddenly overshadowed by “what must happen now.” The pandemic disrupted every aspect of our healthcare ecosystem and forced us to adopt an entirely virtual primary medicine model, something most health systems…