What innovative strategies could fill the gaps?

Harnessing the power of emerging GRIN technologies will require a careful balance between the inevitable super-specialization inherent in them and the need to create system-wide responses to the challenges associated with multiple chronic diseases. It will as a result be necessary to nurture truly inter-disciplinary skills among clinicians, policymakers and managers.

It will also be essential to develop «bridge technologies» and powerful incentives to promote the efficient flow of knowledge across the boundaries of each of the technological domains. Knowledge management tools and managers will thus act as the central pillar of the sustainable reuse of information, the average lifespan of which will continue to shorten.

In addition, new business models and ethical frameworks will be needed to bridge, in radical ways, the gap between bench and society, enabling real-enough-time adoption of scientific breakthroughs.

New methodologies will also be essential to enable clinicians, managers, policymakers and the public to make informed decisions at a speed that can match the pace of technological innovation (26).

For GRIN technology theorists, humans will soon be able to gain more than a year of life expectancy in each chronological year, thus bringing immortality within reach before the end of the 21st century. Others believe that the same technological prowess that gave birth to GRIN technologies has given us the capacity to destroy our very sources of survival, thus turning us into a suicidal species unlikely to survive to see the end of this same century (27, 28). As the future is impossible to predict, all we can do at this point is hope for the best, while being as receptive as possible to innovations that could help relieve the pain, anxiety, fear, sadness and despair caused by multiple chronic diseases.

As for the remainder... we shall see.