This TED Talk features physician scientist Daniel Kraft, recorded live at TED Salon Optum, 2018.

We live in a medication nation. 4.5 billion drug prescriptions will be prescribed by doctors like me this year in the United States alone. That's 15 for every man,

woman, and child. And for most of us, our experience with this medications is often confusing

number of pills, instructions, side effects, one-size-fits-all dosing, which all too often we

aren't taking as prescribed. And this comes at tremendous expense, costing us our time, our money,

and our health. And in our now our exponential, connected, data- our time, our money, and our health.

And in our now our exponential, connected, data-driven age, I think we can, and we must do better.

So let's take a dive at some of the challenges we have and some potential solutions.

Let's start with the fact that many drugs don't work for those who are prescribed to them. For the top 10 grossing drugs in the United States this year, they only benefit one in four to one in 23 of who take them.

That's great if you're number one, but what about everybody else?

And what's worse, drugs when they sometimes don't work can still cause side effects.

Take aspirin.

About one and four of us who take aspirin to reduce our risk of cardiovascular disease are unknowingly

aspirin resistant and still have the same risks of gastrointestinal bleeds that kill thousands

every year.

It's adverse drug reactions like these that are, by some estimates, the number

four leading cause of death in the United States. My own grandfather passed away after a single

dose of antibiotic caused his kidneys to fail. Now, adverse drug reactions and side effects are

often tied to challenges in dosing. I trained in pediatrics, little people, internal medicine,

big people, so one night I might have been on call in the NICU, carefully dosing to the

fraction of a milligram, a medication for a NICU baby. Then that's night on call in the emergency

room, treating a 400-pound lineman or a frail nursing home patient, who by most accounts,

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