Technologies That Will Revolutionize Tomorrow’s Hospitals
What’s the Latest Development?
Consumer electronics represent an opportunity for hospitals to modernize while improving quality of care and patient health, says Dr. Nick van Terheyden, the chief medical informatics officer at Nuance, a medical technology company. Still facing resistance from medical professionals, the shift to electronic patient records will benefit from natural language technologies, like Siri, such that medical records can be compiled from conversations between doctor and patient about medical history, diagnoses, and treatment. Currently, requiring doctors to enter patient information electronically steals time from the curative process.
What’s the Big Idea?
The consumerization of health care will outfit patients with helpful medical devices, such as those popularized by the Quantified Self movement, while increasingly shifting responsibility for staying fit onto patients themselves. “This will force hospitals and the doctors who work in them to find new, more social ways to educate and engage their patients in order to ensure they have the information and tools needed to make smart decisions that ultimately impact their own lives.” In a world where physicians have a wealth of patient data available, appointments can be conducted over long distances by video, virtually eliminating doctors’ offices and long hospital waits.
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