Dr. Toby Cosgrove: Health Care Problems Are The Same Everywhere

Dr. Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, sat down with HuffPost Live at Davos on Wednesday to discuss health care problems around the world.

Cosgrove said "health care's got huge problems, and the problems are just about the same every place."

"Every country that I'm in is concerned about the rising cost of health care and how it affects all the other demands," Cosgrove said.

Cosgrove touched on innovation in health care, saying it takes time for new practices to be available to the masses.

"A lot of new technologies come along and when it's recognized that it's good, it is 13 years on average before it becomes standard practice," Cosgrove said.

Cosgrove said there's a reasonable explanation for that: "the stakes are pretty high." He said physicians want to practice something they're comfortable with, so they train for a long time and are "conservative" with implementing new technologies.

Cosgrove said major developments in health care are often kicked off by simply talking about an issue.

"Once you start the conversation, then you can begin to deal with it," Cosgrove said.

Cosgrove cited obesity as an example.

"Five years ago, you couldn't talk about obesity," Cosgrove said, saying it was "taboo" to bring up the issue. "But now, in, for example, the United States, you talk about this, and you realize that this is not a social issue as much as it is a medical issue."

Watch a clip of Cosgrove's interview above, and see live updates from Davos below: