I was about to give a talk about healthcare, then I got sick.

You really do have to appreciate the irony. In about an hour from now I was about to have the only healthcare-related keynote during a conference on smart cities and urban future. I was planning to talk about how a smart city is a healthy city — and a healthy city is comprised of smart, healthy citizens, that know at any given time if they are healthy or not and are aware of what they need to do to become and remain valuable assets of their respective communities.

I was also going to talk about how Neveli enables these smart citizens to stay in touch with their own bodies and take self-monitoring and health improvement for granted, just like we take mobile phones for granted. I was about to show the world out vision for the future of healthcare.

But then two days before the keynote, I got sick.

Yes, I caught a nasty cold. I’m still in bed, under medication, as I still ponder about the irony of the situation. I’m (generally) in good health, I work out on a regular basis, so how come? I got it from colleagues that thought it’s a good idea to come sick into the office. Then it struck me: we still lack basic healthcare knowledge, such as staying away from crowds when we’re contagious.

So before we start improving healthcare itself, we need to start with healthcare education. Preventive healthcare is as good as those who act upon it.

I’m thinking about doing a research on how much companies lose in terms of productivity and income due to poor basic healthcare practices and how much can be saved if we just follow some rules. For example, what’s the loss if one employee stays at home for a week until she gets well, compared to dozens of employees staying at home just a couple of days when the sickness is at its worst, then coming right in and making everyone else sick as well.

I can understand that the rat-race is harsh, but allowing yourself to become sick and making others sick in the process is really not worth it. So sit back, relax, enjoy your time off, and remember: being healthy gives you a chance of being happy and wealthy.

Neveli facilitates the sharing and interpretation of health-related knowledge and empowers doctors, trainers and other caregivers to take better care of their patients and clients using wearable technology. Sign-up for early access.