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Technology and Healthcare

By Sara White posted 08-28-2016 09:33

  

Daniel Kraft in The Future of Healthcare is Arriving-8 Exciting Areas to Watch from the SingularityHub (Singularity University) Aug 23, 2016 Newsletter outlines the following. If these interest you subscribe for free. A couple of years ago we had an ASHP Meeting Speaker from Singularity University is how I got connected to this newsletter. I am only going to summarize so check out the complete article on SingularityHub.com.

  • These eight are only a taste of the technologies and platforms that are rapidly entering healthcare. The actual newsletter has links to many mentioned as they are being used now or in development.
  • The connected, healthy, interactive home
    • Pharma, device and consumer heath companies are racing to build apps on Amazon Echo and soon to arrive platforms like Google Home. The author has used Amazon Echo for three months and reports that it has quickly become second nature to speak/interact with it
    • Wearable devices that monitor blood pressure, weight, glucose and based on your genomics diet, activity and blood sugar thus performing a daily wellness check and can share data with your physician
    • Personal healthcare companion robots are in use
    • Using WiFi tracking of vital signs incorporating data ranging from weather and pollen counts to neighborhood influenza outbreaks
  • From medical tricorders to connected home medical kits
    • The Tricorder XPrize competition is well underway
    • The next generation “first aid kit meets home health centers”
    • Integration of home diagnostics paired with menu-driven (and potentially artificial intelligence AI driven) assistance and optional telemedicine connectivity can provide increased access to home-based diagnosis, triage and management of health issues
  • The healthcare chatbots are on their way
    • Interactive and engaging from coaching on diet and nutrition to reminding you to take your medications
    • AI-enhanced virtual assistant “who” acts as a medical companion and monitor
    • Has demonstrated an ability to reduce hospital readmissions for heart failure patients
    • Next generation being developed by the Siri’s founders
  • VR in the OR to AR on the streets
    • Google glass (despite reports) is not dead and can be used for remote “scribing” note taking, helping autistic children learn and gamify emotional cues
    • Anatomy VR virtual reality is being used by Case Western medical school along with a plethora of medical education programs
    • AR artificial reality is what runs Pokemon
    • People are leveraging VR virtual reality experience to reduce patient’s pain and thus the need for opiates
  • From quantified self to quantified health
    • Wearables and other connected devices may easily overwhelm us with data so companies such as Google Fit and Apple HealthKit are connected directly to over 30 health systems
  • Uber for health is here
    • Blened with telemedicine, combined services can respond as needed for a true house call that leverages a combination of home diagnostics with hands-on care.
    • Startups have raised money to develop and offer on-demand physician house calls
      • ZipDrug is doing the same for pharmacy deliveries
  • Cancer moonshots
    • While technology is only one aspect of working on cancer but the Cancer XPRIZE competition is underway and the author is involved
  • The omes come home and are being crowd sourced
    • From genome to microbiome and metabolome it is becoming exponentially more common to send in a sample from home and obtain personal ome information
    • 23andMe published a 450,000 customer study uncovering a major trove of genetic clues to the causes of depression
    • Start ups are offering whole-genome sequencing and targeted genetic cancer risk testing

Granted these raise lots of issues that will have to be resolved but they will go forward in some form so our challenge is what are the impacts for pharmacy services?  Please share your thoughts.

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09-01-2016 15:11

David  Indeed and we are dating ourselves. Exciting to see how fast things are moving.

09-01-2016 07:22

Thanks for sharing Sara! Some fun stuff to watch evolve. I still remember the big just from IBM selectric to the Mag Card typewriter. Oh how times have changed!