The digital health space refers to the integration of technology and health care services to improve the overall quality of health care delivery. It encompasses a wide range of innovative and emerging technologies such as wearables, telehealth, artificial intelligence, mobile health, and electronic health records (EHRs). The digital health space offers numerous benefits such as improved patient outcomes, increased access to health care, reduced costs, and improved communication and collaboration between patients and health care providers. For example, patients can now monitor their vital signs such as blood pressure and glucose levels from home using wearable devices and share the data with their doctors in real-time. Telehealth technology allows patients to consult with their health care providers remotely without having to travel to the hospital, making health care more accessible, particularly in remote or rural areas. Artificial intelligence can be used to analyze vast amounts of patient data to identify patterns, predict outcomes, and provide personalized treatment recommendations. Overall, the digital health space is rapidly evolving, and the integration of technology in health

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Computer Science, Electrical Enginers and Health Disruption

Not many physicians have a background in computer science, or electrical engineering.  However, we all are experienced with Health and Disruptive Technology.

Numerous schools of engineering are now challenging their students with electives in  health information technology.  Among these are the School of Engineering at U.C. Berkeley.


The Berkeley ENGINEER (Fall 2015) features an editorial by S.Shankar Sastry, Dean and Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering entitled "Disrupting Health Care by Design" Dean Sastry reveals that it is designed to disrupt, and not engineered to provide a smooth transition to health information technology.

Health information technology is so different from business, banking, basic science, aerospace engineering and other disciplines, requiring software to translate clinician input to usable computer language, the basic underlying code that is used may be very inefficient.

It reveals the lack of collaboration between engineers and clinicians.  Clinicians need to be involved in the education of computer science engineers. The first editions of HIT, EHRs and the like sadly reveal the failure of design parameters. The growth of HIT and computer science were and are still not synchronized.

It will require re-thinking the design process and a plan to improve collaboration of engineers and physicians on the bench of computer engineering laboratories.  The construction of software platforms for health care comes late in the game. The lack of collaboration has resulted in inefficiency and increased cost.

Clinicians and Engineers should be collaborating early in the education of both disciplines. These needs may require electives or perhaps dual majors in either discipline.



Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)