The future of Doctor Internet has already begun. This knowledge can definitely be taken home from the Medica 2012, and into the doctors‘ offices, hospitals and nursing homes. Medica is the world’s largest medical trade fair and was held from 14 to 17 November in Dusseldorf. Although the number of visitors was down slightly to 130,600, we had significantly higher crowds at our stand in comparison to last year. One reason might be the growing interest in ICT solutions in the medical industry.
The Internet pervades the medicine at a rapid pace. The digital patient record is just the beginning. Height and weight are automatically captured and then transferred to the local data management system. More and more doctors are using medical knowledge portals. Specific social networks allow physicians an unprecedented speed and quality of diagnosis. Intelligent diagnostic algorithms are already competing in various areas with their human original. Through this networking, completely new forms of collaboration arise between physicians and specialists, including their digital version.
ICT support is no longer just about managing practices and hospitals. It comes to the patient close to the skin. The smartphone serves for example as reflected light microscope for the diagnosis of skin diseases. Special smartphones and tablets are designed for seniors, including sensor-based mobile protection systems for dementia patients. These digital assistants expand the memory of our body. For not only the brain processes, stores and transmits information, but also the immune system, the heart, the nervous system and the genetic code do the same. The ubiquitous digital medical assistant comes in and opens up previously unimaginable opportunities.
In medicine happens the same as in other industries: apps on mobile devices are proliferating and the cloud is growing in the background. The data center was yesterday. Cloud is today: very flexible data centers of all sizes, which can be located almost anywhere. Massive amounts of structured and unstructured data are processed: Big Data. This goes hand in hand with mobile devices, interacting with this omnipresent cloud. Thus enabling applications that can take into account the location of the user, including his environment.
Social networks have well been used in marketing. Now they enhance the efficiency of team collaboration. For these “social” teams, there are no limits; they stretch as far as the Internet itself. This saves costs, although there are new challenges in data security. Smartphones at the size of a wrist watch allow an entirely new type of emergency call. In addition to the alarm button they have GPS and medical sensors for blood pressure, heart rate and other things.
This new technology revolutionizes our health system, opening up completely new possibilities. Many processes can be simplified. Startups make it to be profitable with new ideas. And the big Internet companies establish themselves in healthcare. You can often re-use standard components for medicine which „only“ need to be adjusted for that purpose. This principle is a good opportunity for independent contractors who assemble these components into a solution. For manufacturers this results in cost savings, because existing development environments can be re-used.
According to the German Economy Minister Philipp Rösler, networking and digitization create enormous progress: „additional safety in therapies, greater flexibility and higher quality of life for patients and thus improve patient outcomes“. The German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers‘ Association (ZVEI) even demands that telemedicine shall be part of the usually supply. Currently it was dependent on chance or the respective insurance company. Therefore growth of telemedicine generates a rapidly growing demand for mHealth devices of all kinds.
Author: Bernd Stahl
nashtechblog 