[Reblog] Tech Innovations in Healthcare | HealthWorks Collective

Tech Innovations in Healthcare | HealthWorks Collective.

From the 6 November 2014 post

As technology continually expands with each passing year so do the industries it affects. This year the world has been witness to everything from wearable technology like Fitbit Google Glass to 3D printing, both of which are prime examples of tech and healthcare melding.

The healthcare industry has been no stranger to advancements in technology. These medical marvels are changing the way people are impacted and thereby changing the face of the healthcare industry.

1. Mobile Apps

…

2. Telehealth

…

3. Google Glass

…

4. 3D Printing

…

5. Optogenetics

…

 

6. Digestible Sensors

…

 

 

Related articles

• An Introduction to the Wearable Technology Event at IDTechEx
• Prosthetic Wearable Technology from LIM Innovations
• Drones, Google Glasses and 3D Printers at QUT
• Kansas trying software for mental health treatment
• Take Two Apps and Text Me in the Morning
• Telehealth adopters could learn some lessons from VA on how to reach patients

Top 10 Innovations for 2014 by the Cleveland Clinic

From the Cleveland Clinic Website  2013 Medical Innovation Summit

Top 10 Innovations for 2014

View Brochure
Download Brochure

Which are the up-and-coming technologies and which will have the biggest impact on healthcare in 2014?

Cleveland Clinic’s culture of innovation naturally fosters a good deal of discussion about new “game changing” technologies and which ones will have the greatest impact each year. The passion of our clinicians and researchers for getting the best care for patients drives a continuous dialogue on what state-of-the art medical technologies are just over the horizon.

This book was developed to share outside Cleveland Clinic what our clinical leaders are saying to each other and what innovations they feel will help shape healthcare over the next 12 months.

#1 Retinal Prosthesis:

In a healthy eye, the rods and cones of the retina are specialized cells that convert light into tiny electrochemical impulses that are sent via the optic nerve into the brain, where they are decoded into images. However, if these delicate photoreceptors are ever damaged, the initial step in the process is disrupted and the visual system cannot transform light into images, leading to blindness…
Learn More|

#2 Genome-Guided Solid Tumor Diagnostics:

Too often, men and women hear the words “prostate cancer,” “breast cancer,” and “colorectal cancer” from their doctors and they immediately think the worst. Many times the aggressive therapies are unnecessary that are offered or demanded. However, there are now genomic-based tests that can make these treatment decisions much easier and more reliable.
Learn More|

#3 Responsive Neurostimulator for Intractable Epilepsy:

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that produces seizures—brief disturbances in the normal electrical activity of the brain—that affect various mental and physical functions. Seizures happen when clusters of nerve cells in the brain signal abnormally, which may briefly alter a person’s consciousness or movements. When a person has two or more unprovoked seizures, he or she is considered to have epilepsy.
Learn More|

#4 New Era in Hepatitis C Treatment:

Hepatitis C infection, a common liver disease that affects an estimated four million people in the United States, is transmitted through exposure to infected blood (blood was not screened effectively for hepatitis C until 1992) or sexual contact with an infected person. The majority of people with the ailment don’t realize that they have the disease because of a lack of symptoms.
Learn More|

#5 Perioperative Decision Support System:

Anesthesia is given to patients to inhibit pain, sedate the body, and also regulate various bodily functions in surgery. Today, there are 51 million hospital surgical procedures performed annually in the United States, most which are not possible without anesthesia. Before the discovery of anesthesia and the first painless surgery in 1842, surgical patients had their pain dulled with opium or copious amounts of alcohol. With the advent of many new medications and surgical monitoring equipment, we are now in the modern era of anesthesia and optimal surgical care.
Learn More|

#6 Fecal Microbiota Transplantation:

Many hospitalized patients develop hospital-acquired infections, oftentimes due, paradoxically, to broad-spectrum and fluoroquinolone antibiotic therapy used for medical treatment. Antibiotics, which are supposed to kill bacteria, can also increase the odds of some people developing a dangerous and potentially lethal infection from rod-shaped bacteria called Clostridium difficile, or C. diff.
Learn More|

#7 Relaxin for Acute Heart Failure:

Heart failure is a debilitating and potentially life-threatening condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood to supply the body. Symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, and fluid retention are caused by a weakened or stiffened heart, significantly diminishing its ability to fill normally or effectively distribute blood. According to the American Heart Association, approximately five million people experience heart failure in the United States and more than half a million new cases are diagnosed annually in this country.
Learn More|

#8 Computer-Assisted Personalized Sedation Station:

A colonoscopy is an exam that lets a gastroenterologist look closely at the inside of the entire colon and rectum for polyps, the small growths that over time can become cancerous. Using a colonoscope, a thin, flexible, hollow, lighted tube that has a tiny video camera on the end, the doctor sends pictures to a TV screen. The exam itself takes about 30 minutes. Patients are usually given light sedation to help them relax and sleep while the procedure is performed.
Learn More|

#9 TMAO ASSAY: Novel Biomaker for the Microbiome:

There is a global hunt in progress using a variety of cardiovascular fingerprints—scientists call them biomarkers—that have been discovered or created to help identify the initiation, development, and ongoing cascade of damage caused by heart disease.
Learn More|

#10 B-Cell Receptor Pathway Inhibitors:

Chemotherapy is a blunt instrument designed to indiscriminately kill rapidly dividing cells in the hope that the cancer cells die more and grow back less than healthy cells. That normal cells are routinely damaged in this destructive procedure accounts for the side effects and toxicity of traditional chemotherapy.
Learn More|

Related articles

• Cleveland Clinic’s picks for top innovations in 2014: The bionic eye, gene tests for cancer (medcitynews.com)
• Cleveland Clinic Announces Top Ten Medical Innovations of 2014 (biospace.com)
• Smart thermometer is the favorite at Cleveland Clinic & StartUp Health’s venture challenge (medcitynews.com)
• IBM Research Unveils Two New Watson Related Projects from Cleveland Clinic Collaboration (sacbee.com)

 

Google Glass, iWatch and IBM Watson Revolutionizing The Practice of Medicine

Related articles

• Google Glass vs. Apple’s iWatch (mashable.com)
• Smartphones Out, iWatch and Google Glass In (thedroidguy.com)
• Would your face prefer these redesigned Google Glass renders? (pcauthority.com.au)
• Google Glasses… What’s Next??? (dulcemovement.com)
• First Apple, Then Samsung, Now Google Is Rumored To Release Own Smart Watch (appadvice.com)

ScienceRoll

People have been thinking about the potential ways Google Glass could be used in medicine and healthcare. Even though it will probably be bad for your eyes, early testers seemed to love using it and didn’t feel it would distract them from anything. A few examples how it could be used in the future:

• Displaying the patient’s electronic medical records real-time.
• Assisting the doctor in making the diagnosis with evidence-based and relevant information from the medical literature.
• Recording every operation and procedure from the doctors perspective. Every movement of doctors will be archived and screened for potential mistakes. (I know it’s harsh.)
• Based on the lab tests of the patient, it will give an estimated prognosis and suggest next steps in the treatment.
• Live consultations with colleagues as they will be able to see what I see live.
• It will guide users through all the steps during an emergency…

View original post 212 more words

How Doctors Think About New Technologies

From the post by Leslie Kernisan at The Health Care Blog

…

My questions when considering a new technology

To begin with, here are the questions that I think about when considering a new technology:

Does it help me do something I’m already trying to do for clinical reasons? Examples include tracking the kind of practical data I describe here (sleep, pain, falls, etc), helping patient keep track of — and take — medications, helping caregivers monitor symptoms, coordinating with other providers…my list goes on and on, although I’ll admit that I prioritize management of medical conditions, with issues like social optimization being secondary. (Social optimization is crucial, it’s just not what physicians are best at, although I certainly weigh in on how an elder’s dementia or arthritis might affect their social options.)

What evidence is there that using it will improve the health and wellbeing of an older adult (or of a caregiver)? Granted, the vast majority of interesting new tech tools will not have been rigorously tested in of themselves. Still, there is often related and relevant published evidence that can be considered. For instance, studies have generally found that there’s no clear clinical benefit in having non-insulin dependent Type 2 diabetics regularly self-monitor blood glucose. (And it is certainly burdensome for older people with lots of medical problems.) Hence I would be a bit skeptical of a new technology whose purpose is to make it easier for older adults to track their blood sugar daily, unless it were targeted towards elders on insulin or otherwise at high risk for hypoglycemia.

How does the data gathering compare to the gold standard? Many new tech tools gather data about a person. If we are to use this information for clinical purposes, then we clinicians need to know how this data gathering compares to the gold standard, or at least to a commonly used standard. For instance, if it’s a consumer wrist device to measure sleep, how does it compare in accuracy to observation in a sleep lab? Or to the actigraphy used in peer-reviewed sleep research? If it’s a sensor system to monitor gait, how does it compare to the gait evaluation of a physical therapist? If it’s the Scanadu Scout Tricorder, which measures pulse transit time as a proxy for systolic blood pressure, where is data validating that pulse transit time as measured by this device accurately reflects blood pressure? (BTW I can’t take such a tricorder seriously if it doesn’t provide a blood pressure estimate that I can have confidence in; blood pressure is essential in internal medicine.)

How exactly does it work? Especially when it comes to claims that the product will help with clinical care, or with healthcare, I want to know exactly how that might work. In particular, I want to know how the service loops in the clinician, or will facilitate the work the clinician and patient are collaborating on.

How easy is it to use? Tools and technologies need to be easy to use. Users of interest to me include older adults, caregivers, and the clinician that they’ll be interfacing with. BTW, all those med management apps that require users to laboriously enter in long drug names are NOT easy to use in my book.

How easy is it to try? Let’s assume a new technology is proposing a service to the patient (or to me) that offers plausible benefits, either because it’s a tech delivery of a clinically validated service, or because it passes my own internal common sense filters. How easy is it to actually set up and try? I’m certainly more inclined to explore a tool that doesn’t require a large financial investment, or training investment.

How cost-effective is using this technology? I’m interested both in cost-effectiveness for the patient & family, and also for the healthcare system. Sometimes we have simpler and cheaper ways to get the job done almost as well.

Can this technology provide multiple services to the patient? My patients are all medically complex, and have lots going on. Products that can provide multiple services (such as socializing with family off-site AND monitoring symptoms), or that can coordinate with another product — perhaps by allowing other services to import/export data — are a big plus.

Does this technology work well for someone who has lots of medical complexity? I always want to know if the product is robust enough to be usable by someone who has a dozen chronic conditions and at least 15 medications.

What I’d like to see on the websites

These days, a website is the generally the place to start when looking into a product or service.

It’s a great help to me when a product’s website addresses the questions I list above. Specifically, I find it very helpful when websites:

Have a section formatted for clinicians in particular. I’m afraid I don’t have much time for gauzy promises of fostering a happier old age. I just want to know how this will help me help my patients. Specific examples are very very helpful.

Have a “how it works” section with screenshots and concise text. Personally, I have limited tolerance for video (videos can’t be skimmed the way text and pictures can) and find it a little frustrating when most information is in videos. Note that it’s probably best to have separate “how it works” sections for clinicians and for patients/caregivers.

Provide a downloadable brochure for patients/families, and another for clinicians.Although it’s annoying when information is presented ONLY in a pdf brochure, I’ve discovered that I quite like having the option of a brochure. Brochures are much easier to read than websites, in that you don’t have mentally decide how to navigate them, or search through them in quite the way you do with websites. Also, brochures can be conveniently emailed to colleagues or patients, which is nice when you want to suggest that your patient try something new…..

 

Read the entire blog post here

 

Related articles

• 4 ways to make IT clinician-friendly (healthitplus.wordpress.com)
• Readers Write: Healthcare’s Crystal Ball – Predictions for 2013 (histalk2.com)
• Physicians’ websites are more “electronic brochures,” than online health resources (medcitynews.com)
• Capturing clinical innovation to improve patient care (siliconrepublic.com)
• Health, Technology and the Forgotten Stepchild of Innovation (forbes.com)