1.Describe technological innovations that may influence the future growth of hea
ID: 108844 • Letter: 1
Question
1.Describe technological innovations that may influence the future growth of health informatics
2. Distinguish between peer-reviewed articles and non-peer-reviewed articles. Search for a full-text peer-reviewed article related to the technological innovation that you identified for further research, and then download this article. Search of a non-peer-reviewed article also related to this technological innovation, and then download this article as well. As you conduct your searches, consider the differences between peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed articles and how you can distinguish one from the other. Please provide reference!
Explanation / Answer
1. Some of the biggest innovations in healthcare technology that influence the future growth of health informatics -
1. Microchips Modelling Clinicals Trials -
The potential to streamline, improve, and perhaps transform the current healthcare system is huge. That’s how microchip modeling clinical trials came into use because there was an open opportunity and a need to innovate on the way clinical trials are conducted.
Microchip modeling clinical trials aim to replace the use of animals in clinical trials to more accurately test the safety and efficacy of treatment for human patients and spare the lives of countless animals typically used in testing.
These microchips are smaller than a human thumb, can reconstruct the complicated interface between organs and capillaries, which is similar to the idea of microfabrication, the process of making structures on a micrometer scale.
By eliminating animal models in certain circumstances, scientists and doctors have been able to reconstruct organs like the human lungs by focusing on the use of complicated systems of microchips to emulate these bodily systems.
In many instances, animals pass as adequate human stand in’s but in many cases they do not help drive accurate results on how human’s would be affected by the same procedures, diseases and treatments. Microchips more closely resemble live tissue, cell types and realistic three-dimensional interactions occurring in the human body than do other forms of clinical testing to date.
2. Wearable Technology Like Google Glass -
Wearable technology is still in its infancy but has already started to have widespread influence across many industries. Dr. Rafael Grossmann was the very first surgeon to use Google Glass or wearable technology in general while performing a surgery.
As wearable technology continues to improve to better meet the needs of its users, healthcare providers continue to hope that its use will impact both the experience of patients and practitioners to better receive and administer care.
Dr. Grossmann believes that Google Glass and wearable technology of a similar nature will help improve the way healthcare providers interact with patients and a patient’s relatives, increasing the satisfaction of patients and making doctors and other providers more effective at doing their job because of the added level of communication between parties.
He sees this new technology as allowing a doctor to someday interact with a patient, while simultaneously pulling up their medical history using Google Glass. The surgery performed using Google Glass could serve as an example of real-time education for medical students and other professionals alike.
There are even telemedicine opportunities with Google Glass as well, allowing doctors and other medical professionals to provide clinical care in certain capacities from a distance. The practice is already in use by doctor’s providing medical advice via the phone or email in many instances across the United States but, it’s the technology that limits how effective this approach can be when it comes to what level of care is able to be administered.
This is so important because according to Grossmann, many don’t survive a medical condition or emergency each year because the right patient needs to be at the right place at the right time and this isn’t often the case since up to 30% of the U.S. population doesn’t live near a trauma center if they happen to live a rural area for example.
Grossmann has used Apple’s FaceTime to discuss crucial patient crises as well as virtual examinations with patients in various locations across the country, able to severely impact the outcome of their care. He argues that with the continued adoption of wearable tech like Google Glass, more lives will be saved since communication between medical professionals and patients will continue to improve to the next level.
3. Optogenetics -
A new technology has jump-started the technique in neuroscience known as optogenetics where neuroscientists target a single neuron in the brain of a mouse merely by turning on a light.
This is done by using a light activated gene and inserting it into the genome of a mouse to be able to easily identify when the particular neuron is firing in the brain.
Optogenetics is a hot topic amongst the medical community today, surrounded by both praise and criticism. Its purpose is to control a brain’s activity with light. This could have far reaching benefits with humans to help better understand the complex network of neurons that make up the brain. A stronger understanding could help humans better grasp how we create thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
Identifying these neurons may sometime help people detect flaws or deformities in the various neurons in the brain that cause devastating mental disorders like schizophrenia, Parkinson’s and depression. By controlling the activity of specific neurons, neuroscientists will begin to learn how each type of neuron contributes to the overall functions of the brain.
The firing of a neuron through lighting may someday be a technique to finding the answers to some of the many open questions mankind has wondered about themselves both medically and physiologically since the dawn of time or this technique may not be able to work with humans due to its invasive nature in its current applications with rats.
Time will tell as to whether this approach is effective, but nevertheless, the study of the human brain using light will help neuroscientists on the path to better understanding the neurons and how they work across this complex organ.
4. Cloud Based Provider Relationship Management Software -
Communication may seem like an easy technology to develop for the healthcare industry, but it has been nothing but problematic for decades costing over $250 billion to process over 30 billion transactions annually. From referrals, progress updates, and insurance authorizations; these types of communications result in huge amounts of money and time being wasted and a liability to every healthcare provider.
Patients are stuck in the middle as doctors still communicate with antiquated systems (ex. the fax machine) delaying critical care. As many as 50 percent of referrals are not received by the specialty care provider causing patients to miss treatment and healthcare providers to lose money.
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