Where does new technology take us in terms of healthcare?
Compared to our grandparents, our lives have changed drastically when considering healthcare. We have access to more knowledge and more advanced medicine than before. We benefit from less strenuous working conditions and live longer. But still, our lifestyle diseases are increasing alarmingly. Diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, asthma and cancer are our biggest threats. We are exposed to more stress, move less and eat more - although less nutritious food. We enjoy wonderful communication tools that allow us to talk to our friends and family worldwide, 24/7, but many people are getting lonelier and more depressed. It seems so obvious: eat better, move more, reduce alcohol intake, stop smoking and become involved in group activities to improve your health. Contrary to that, the world population just seems to get sicker.
So what can we do and how can medicine adapt to our new lifestyle?There is hope on the horizon. The availability of new information and technology in medicine will enable us to make use of more self-managed preventive and personalised medicine. Healthcare data analysis, while still in its infancy, can already indicate who would be more likely to develop diabetes (as applied in our diabetes risk assessment). Soon, predictive tests will assist doctors in deciding on the most efficient preventive measures or disease treatments. Genetic tests will determine the success of a specific treatment option. Cancer treatment, for example, will be developed towards treating people based on their genetic profile, not just their tumour type.
Whilst scientists are collecting and analysing data to decode the genetic risks of specific patient groups, patients themselves can already collect and analyse their health data and share the results with their doctors. Lifestyle technology empowers us to keep on top of simple key health indicators. A device on your wrist can measure your movement, calories burnt and heart rate; other gadgets measure your sleep quantity and quality. Your blood pressure monitor can record and analyse your daily results and your bathroom scale records your weight, body fat, muscle and water in your body. Diabetes patients can use pocket glucose readers and asthma patients can use oxygen level monitors at home. Nowadays you can even connect all of these home devices to one single app on your cell phone and create a valuable health record for your healthcare provider.
How can we keep up with the digital future?It is quite obvious that over the next decade healthcare will change and might even be disrupted by technology, just as the taxi industry experienced with the introduction of Uber. The collection and evaluation of healthcare data by individual patients, the analysis of patients’ medical records by healthcare providers and global research will be fed into Artificial Intelligence to be used for prediction, diagnosis and treatment of conditions.
The goal is not to replace physicians or healthcare professionals, but to give them better tools to manage their patients’ health. While many people fear that artificial intelligence could remove human intervention, we should look at it as an opportunity to fill critical gaps in existing healthcare services.
Instagram and Facebook can already analyse posts and photos to predict if a user has suicidal tendencies and has implemented a suicide prevention tool. A team at Northeastern University in the US developed a new model to predict the spread of the flu, in real time, using key words collected on Twitter.
Established in many countries, and in its infancy in South Africa, websites using Artificial Intelligence can provide simple diagnoses, a search function to find the appropriate doctor and facilitate online consultations for the patient via messaging apps and video chat services. This is a valuable tool if one lives in a remote area or does not have transport. Simple home robots with Artificial Intelligence can already remind us to take our medicine, notify our doctors of changes in our condition or contact our loved ones if we have not followed our normal routine.
According to Moore’s law (the founder of Intel) the capability of technology doubles every 18 months. Technology and Artificial Intelligence will be part of our lives and healthcare, whether we want it or not. We are often scared of things we don’t understand, but the more we learn about how technology works and how to use it, the more comfortable we will be, and the more it will be able to help us to live a healthier life.