Richard Wagner
qliqSOFT
If you’ve ever been
to an emergency room it should be a familiar tale by now. After arriving and
checking into the front desk, a triage nurse takes your vitals and asks you to
describe your symptoms. Based on the severity of your condition and the time of
day, you sit in the waiting room anywhere from five minutes to five hours, when
you are eventually seen by an attending physician who gets more details on your
condition. X-rays, blood tests, and other diagnostic tests are performed while
you recline in a hospital bed. An hour or two later you’re sent on your way
with a diagnosis, pharmacy prescription, and an informational packet containing
more details on your likely condition. Unfortunately you had to take an entire
day off of work for the entire process, but at least you were able to leaf
through a half dozen outdated magazines in the waiting room.
Dr. Eric Topol,
world-class cardiologist and author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine,
thinks we can do better than this. In a recent NBC interview, Topol
described the current revolution going on in healthcare with the smartphone
leading the charge. “Why do we have people being treated like cattle herd?”
Topol questions. Through archaic screening processes designed to address the
problems of the masses and not the individuals, Topol says billions of dollars
are going to waste. With advances in personal genomics, remote monitoring, and
patient engagement, personalized medicine might be the new frontier. Echoing
the words of Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter, Topol believes that
medicine as we know it is on the verge of “creative destruction.”
If smartphones and
wireless technology are to usher in a new era in medicine, meaningful patient
engagement stands right by its side. Remote devices that continuously monitor a
patient’s vials and blood concentration can provide enormous health benefits to
a population – but only to the degree that patients continue to adhere to the
technologies.
Continuous
communication with the patients who will use these devices will remain a tier
one issue. Nevertheless, the potential benefits to patients and physicians alike
are enormous. Instead of a trip to the emergency room next time, a diagnosis
and prescription could be sent to a patient’s smart phone before he or she even
starts to develop symptoms. True preventive medicine.
