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Are Smartphones the New Doctors?

The article isn't directly on IBD, but about our changing health care world. It is amazing how the internet and new technology is changing our medical system. I wonder if there are apps for IBD?

"Are Smartphones the New Doctors?"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/02/10/are-smartphones-the-new-doctors/

excerpt from Walter Russell Mead's article:

Smartphones may soon allow you to carry your very own portable health clinic right in your pocket. That’s the opinion of Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist convinced that smartphone technology is the future of medicine.
One day Topol was flying to San Diego when another passenger started having bad chest pains. He hooked an AliveCor device onto his phone, did a cardiogram, and confirmed that the passenger was having a heart attack. He advised the plane to land immediately and walked away from the flight with an understanding of the power of smartphones to revolutionize healthcare. MSN reports:
“These days, I’m prescribing a lot more apps than I am medications,” he continued.
Topol points to a growing number of apps and devices, none of which he is paid for using or endorsing, that are capable of measuring vital signs and then transmitting that data to smartphones. Whether it’s your blood sugar levels, your heart rate or your sleep habits, Topol believes we should track our own conditions through our phones and use that data to see patterns and warning signs of illness.
If Topol is right, this is a big deal. Smartphone “clinics” could allow us to radically personalize medicine, mapping people’s immune system, heartbeat and vital signs to precisely target any illnesses they may have. As Topol points out, this would not only improve care, but save the costs associated with one-size-fits-all medicine, eliminating the need for annual mammograms and other “mandated mass screenings.”...
 

nogutsnoglory

Moderator
Technology is both an asset and a hurdle. It will allow us to better diagnose and be more informed but on the flip side I fear more people self diagnosing without a medical professional.
 
Along those lines, saw this article yesterday in Forbes about the possible use of super computers to make a diagnosis. I was surprised to read in a trial use of Watson that when it came to lung cancer, currently health care professionals were right around 50% of the time in making a correct diagnosis. According to the article, IBM's Watson was able to make the correct call 90% of the time.

"IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceup...ts-its-first-piece-of-business-in-healthcare/
 
I'd guess we're probably going to see high tech. diagnostic computers used more often in the future for health care. As this article points out, despite all the years of training in medical school, it remains difficult for doctors to reach a correct diagnosis all to often. Computers can be more efficient at this. Doing so not only helps the patient, but also saves money, which in todays world is becoming more important.

It isn't computers but I was reading today about the financially strapped state of California looking into allowing less costly physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and optometrists to act as primary care givers. I'd guess we're going to be seeing more cost savings trends such as this in the future.

http://michellemalkin.com/2013/02/1...ough-california-doctors-to-service-obamacare/
 
Some more technology news about our changing health care system that I saw today & found interesting.

"The Doctor’s In…Your Computer"

Snippet from the article:

Patients may soon get cheap, fast, and effective health care right from their desks, according to recent experiments with virtual doctor visits. A new report by Virtuwell clinic, a digital office of nurse practitioners created in Minnesota more than two years ago, finds that virtual visits were on average $88 cheaper than in-person visits and saved on average about 2.5 hours of patients’ time. The NYT has more:
The service works like this: Patients go to virtuwell.com and answer questions about their symptoms and medical history, any allergies and medications they are taking….
A certified nurse practitioner then reviews the questionnaire and writes a treatment plan—usually within 30 minutes. The patient is notified by text or e-mail when the plan is ready. If a prescription is needed, it is sent electronically to the pharmacy of the patient’s choice.
So far Virtuwell has handled about 40,000 cases, so its success is big news.....
The rest can be seen at:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/02/14/the-doctors-in-your-computer/
 
Some further information on our evolving health care system - possibly.

"Healthcare 2.0 Is On the Way (If Doctors Don’t Stop It)"

Surgeon-robots, apps that perform EKGs, wrist bands that monitor blood pressure, and predictive DNA sequencing. These are just a few of the new technologies poised to revolutionize the health care industry, says Jonathan Cohn’s excellent piece in this month’s Atlantic.
Cohn notes that until very recently most medical innovations were about creating new drugs or surgical procedures. These advances have improved the quality of care but left the basic inefficiencies of our healthcare delivery system in place.
Now health care innovation is increasingly about “accumulating, processing, and applying data.” Cohn argues (and we’ve long believed) that this data-and-distribution technology will completely disrupt the medical profession in the coming decades, giving us better, cheaper, and more effective health care.
Cohn’s piece is particularly strong on the way these innovations will reduce the role that doctors play in routine medical treatments, allowing health care professionals with less training to pick up the slack:...
The rest can be seen at:

http://blogs.the-american-interest....re-2-0-is-on-the-way-if-doctors-dont-stop-it/
 
This could make it easier to see your doctor.

"The Doctor Will See You…From Across the World"

snippet:

Telepresence technology is giving new meaning to the phrase “doctors without borders.” Telepresence robots are like Skype on wheels: long columns with video screens mounted on top. According to an excellent article in The Economist, doctors are already using these robots to see patients around the world:
Robotic-telepresence technology for hospitals is now so good “it’s like being at the bedside”, says Antonio Marttos, a doctor who uses robots to visit gunshot and bombing survivors in Brazil, Haiti, Iraq and elsewhere, from his base at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami [...]
Brazil’s Olympic Organising Committee will put telepresence robots in operating rooms for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. João Grangeiro, the committee’s chief medical officer, says this means that doctors unable to accompany their athletes to the games will be able to advise Brazilian surgeons during operations....

The rest can be seen at:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/11/the-doctor-will-see-you-from-across-the-world/
 
I dont know, technology in my opinion is the blessing and the curse all at the same time. Dont get me wrong, the evolving technology does have a lot of advatages, but there is so much room for error. But again, looks how much error there is when it comes to doctors and misdiagnosing of different diseases or doctors just not knowing. Right now I dont trust doctors at all,I mean from what I have experienced, they are Very limited when it comes to knowledge about these different diseases. I mean, sure they have tests, but even the tests are becoming very primitive and not at all that reliable.What makes it worse is that they charge exuberant amounts of money for these tests too... I dont know, it will be a LONG time before our health care system and profession seriously asdvances for the better in my opinion.
 
Agree, it's hard to say which way this new information technology will lead our health care system. It could be for the better, worse, or a likely mix of the two. The general sense I have is that with computers being faster and more capable, placing more information out into the public, there is a decent possibility we will see computers automating portions of our health care system.
 
I am not sure I would want all my personal health info online at this point. Not sure if computers automating our health would be good or not. I mean I can see some good points, but also a potential for some bad... Like right now doctors always seem in such a hurry and dont really like to take the time out for their patients. Can you imagine if most was done over the net?? Not sure it would be a good thing.



Agree, it's hard to say which way this new information technology will lead our health care system. It could be for the better, worse, or a likely mix of the two. The general sense I have is that with computers being faster and more capable, placing more information out into the public, there is a decent possibility we will see computers automating portions of our health care system.
 
For better or worse, I suspect that a good portion of our health care will be done over the internet in the future. Our new national health care law has it such that our medical records will be online, legally accessible by thousands. It's one of those grey areas where I suspect we will be learning as we go. My suspicion too is that there will be fewer doctors in the future being our primary care givers, with instead nurses aids and the like taking the lead. That is just a guess though. Doctors might be taking more of an overview position.

Posted earlier, but about this possibility with computers doing the health analysis.

"Healthcare 2.0 Is On the Way (If Doctors Don’t Stop It)"

http://blogs.the-american-interest....re-2-0-is-on-the-way-if-doctors-dont-stop-it/

snippet from the article:

...David Autor, an economist at MIT, has noted that for the past generation, technological change in the U.S. has tended to favor highly skilled workers at the expense of those with mid-level skills. Routine clerical functions, for instance, have been automated, contributing to the hollowing-out of the middle class. But in the coming years, health care may prove a large and important exception to that general rule—effectively turning the rule on its head [...]
“I don’t think physicians will be seeing patients as much in the future,” says David Lee Scher, a former cardiac electrophysiologist and the president of DLS Healthcare Consulting, which advises health-care organizations and developers of digital health-care technologies. “I think they are transitioning into what I see as super-quality-control officers, overseeing physician assistants, nurses, nurse-practitioners, etc., who are really going to be the ones who see the patients.”
The piece is full of good news, but it ends on an ominous note: The full benefits of this tech will never be realized unless the medical establishment agrees to let it in. Paraphrasing one medical tech expert, Cohn writers, “Watson [the Jeopardy-winning robot with medical applications] won’t change medicine, in other words, if the people who practice medicine don’t want it to change.”
The health care industry is full of groups who have a vested interest in the status quo, from doctors who resist tech that will increasingly take them out of the picture to hospitals that are content to make a lot of money by overcharging patients. The central policy goal for health care in the coming decade is to prevent these groups from getting in the way of progress.
Read the whole thing.
 
Thats interesting. I mean I have no problem seeing a nurse practicioner. The problem I have is that I think they are dumming down the cirriculum for doctors in order for them to get their medical license these days. Seriously, you would not believe some of the incompatent doctors I have seen in the last 9 years! I gotta say, being chronically ill and having been forced to search for help and seeing many different specialists, It has totally opened my eyes. I mean dont get me wrong, there are good doctors out there. My primary care doctor is great. She is very smart and has a great bed side manner and really listens to her patients and treats them individually. That is how it should be. But unfortunately in the realm of the medical community there are some awful doctors out there who probably should not be practicing medicine. I am afraid that if everything is being done over the net in the future, doctors are going to be even more passive.

I mean on another Note, my husband is a teacher. He busts his butt. I mean people usually think a teachers job is easy( I mean I use to think this before I met my husband :) He puts in like a lot of teachers out there 10 to 12 hours a day. He teaches from 7:45am until 2:45 pm. Then he comes home and grades papers, upgrades online gradebook, prepares lessons and powerpoints for the week, calls parents etc.. for the next three to sometimes four hours. But anyhow, to get to my point, I am thankul my hubby works in a gifted school in a nice area. A lot of teachers are not so lucky. But the new thing at least here in Illinos is that a teacher HAS to make sure EVERY student passes or exceeds the standardized tests. If they do not and one of the teachers students drop, the teacher may be fired!!! They get the blame. I mean take a teacher who works in a not so nice area. ( my husband use to work in one of these school years ago). Kids come to school high, their parents do not give a crap at all. I mean I remember back when it was report card pick up when my husband worked at one of these bad schools, not 1 parent showed up to pick up their kids report card! Now tell me how is a teacher suppose to make these kids learn???? But they have to, their jobs are literally on the line if they dont!

Now to my point, maybe they should start holding doctors more responsible for their care to their patients. I mean it's about time that doctors really look at each individual person and their issue and come up with individualized plans for each person. I mean right now it seems like most doctors offices are run like a factory line! I mean it is like you are treated like protocol, one size fits all! I also think a doctor should not get paid huge amounts if they cannot even help a person. I cannot tell you how much $$$ we have spent going from doctor to doctor on trying to find out what is wrong with me and for help. But I am still sick and have not gotten much help,but yet these doctors are getting paid Big bucks. I think they need to hold doctors more responsible. I think by making a majority of our health care via the net, things are only going to get worse in terms of the care people are going to receive.....













For better or worse, I suspect that a good portion of our health care will be done over the internet in the future. Our new national health care law has it such that our medical records will be online, legally accessible by thousands. It's one of those grey areas where I suspect we will be learning as we go. My suspicion too is that there will be fewer doctors in the future being our primary care givers, with instead nurses aids and the like taking the lead. That is just a guess though. Doctors might be taking more of an overview position.

Posted earlier, but about this possibility with computers doing the health analysis.

"Healthcare 2.0 Is On the Way (If Doctors Don’t Stop It)"

http://blogs.the-american-interest....re-2-0-is-on-the-way-if-doctors-dont-stop-it/

snippet from the article:
 
It's not easy being untreated and in a great deal of pain. I hope you find an answer soon Ihurt! I was in the same position for many, many years unfortunately, going from doctor to doctor, not finding answers. The pain could be unbearable. It's an understatement to say it was a stressful situation. Best of luck. I'm hoping you find an answer this year!

Well, personally I think the best way to hold doctors accountable is with giving people choices. If a doctor isn't working in your best interest you feel, it is time to find someone new.

I'm not sure if a mandated accountability program would do good. I've seen what the accountability programs have done in the teaching profession over the years. Instead of better students, instead politicians and school officials have played with statistics and made tests easier so that more students pass requirements. I recall reading earlier this week another example on this. In New York where we often hear about improving student grades and graduation rates, a new report came out saying nearly 80% of recent high school graduates from New York City have not learned basic skills of reading, writing, math, while in high school. Something similar happened in the state of Georgia last year. There the state used to boast one of the nations highest high school graduate rates. Then it was learned that school officials were playing with statistics to make themselves look better. Now after a correction, the state has one of the worst graduation rates in the nation.

I'm afraid if we came out with a mandate system holding doctors responsible for cures, something similar would happen. I can imagine doctors under pressure to find a cure will write down nearly anything, even to the point of saying you have no true condition at all, making stories up.

"Bloomberg Prances Through Education Disaster"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/09/bloomberg-prances-through-education-disaster/

snippet:

Should New York City be applauded for its high spending on public education? At an average of $20,000-plus per student, many would say yes.
But results matter, and New York’s results are truly, shockingly bad. A recent CBS report claims that nearly 80 percent of NYC high school graduates don’t have the basic reading, writing, or math skills necessary to participate in the city’s Community College system. That’s 11,000 students with high school diplomas in need of remedial courses—at a cost of about $200 million dollars per year.
The City University of New York (CUNY) is trying to compensate with remedial courses, but filling the gaps in education is an uphill struggle:...
 
You have a good point there. Yeah, I can see that happening too. Yes, you are right about the school system as well. That is a tough issue. I mean in order for a kid to learn and do well, parents have to instill and motivate their kids. Also the kids themselves have to take the iniciative to want to learn otherwise it is a useless task. Poor teachers are set up to lose. I mean we cannot expect a teacher to do it all. Learning starts at home. My husband actually had a parent tell him that teachers should teach kids more about manners, that his son has terrible manners! My husband was speechless. I mean some of these parents would probably like the teachers to raise their kids for them! It is crazy. My husband loves teaching, or rather he did. But now with all the political crap that is involved in education, it is no longer about the kids, it is about politics and making money or saving money... Just a joke.

But as far as the health care, I do see your point, I can see doctors just coming up with any old thing ( hell, some do that now!). My best friend had severe hives where she went into anaphlactic shock almost every month for two years! She went to a specialist and because he did not know what was wrong, instead of referring her to someone else, he told her she had hysterical woman syndrome!!! WTH! I mean seriosuly?? She later found out the severe allergic reaction was from a parasitic cyst she had in her liver. But can you believe the nerve of that doctor( I mean I do not even want to call him a doctor!). But this happens all the time unfortunately.

I hope to get some answers as well. I am tired of being sick and in pain all the time. I am a complicated case at best though. I have a lot of health issues that get in the way of one another. I really need to get a colonoscopy but my gastro does not want to do it, he said it will definitely make my IC bladder worse. He is right, I am mean I get UTI's just by thinking about them( not really) but I mean that is how sensitive I am. When I get the infections they are not easy to treat. I mean I had an MRE back in October of last year. Well that stuff I had to drink gave me awful diarreha and I got a UTI 2 days later. It took me 2 monnths to calm my baldder down and get rid of the infection. I mean so it is an issue. But I really feel my intestines are getting worse. I have been on low dose antibiotics for 5 years now. First keflex and now augmentin! I am positive that has something to do with my severe intestinal pain and issues. But what do I do, I mean my regular doctor says if I get off the low dose ones, I will end up with infections again and then I will have to take high doses o antibitoics and that is worse than taking low dose she says. I am really stuck here. I mean I need to know what is wrong with me... I feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I am damned if I do and dambed it I dont... It really stinks.. :(

Yeah, but you are right on the whole health issue. I am scared to even think about what the future holds when it comes to our health care....












I'm not sure if a mandated accountability program would do good. I've seen what the accountability programs have done in the teaching profession over the years. Instead of better students, instead politicians and school officials have played with statistics and made tests easier so that more students pass requirements. I recall reading earlier this week another example on this. In New York where we often hear about improving student grades and graduation rates, a new report came out saying nearly 80% of recent high school graduates from New York City have not learned basic skills of reading, writing, math, while in high school. Something similar happened in the state of Georgia last year. There the state used to boast one of the nations highest high school graduate rates. Then it was learned that school officials were playing with statistics to make themselves look better. Now after a correction, the state has one of the worst graduation rates in the nation.

I'm afraid if we came out with a mandate system holding doctors responsible for cures, something similar would happen. I can imagine doctors under pressure to find a cure will write down nearly anything, even to the point of saying you have no true condition at all, making stories up.
snippet:[/QUOTE]
 
It is amazing at how far robotic surgery has come.

"The Rise of the Robosurgeon"

snippet:

Forget Robocop: The future belongs to Robosurgeon.
Popular Mechanics offers an informative look at the role robots are already playing in operating rooms across the country. Currently most robosurgeons are artificial arms that must be controlled by humans. Their inputs can be smoothed to reduce the unsteadiness human hands bring into the OR, but they still require a human operator. That’s about to change:...
The rest can be seen at:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/14/the-rise-of-the-robosurgeon/
 
Further remarkable computer innovations that are changing our health care delivery system.

"Med Tech Roundup: The Amazing Accidential Apple Health Care Revolution"

While policymakers and DC wonks were debating top-down reforms to our health care system, a health care revolution was quietly taking place. Daily Finance reports on how Apple technology, while not originally designed with health care applications in mind, has already begun to transform the industry:
Use of Apple’s products goes beyond serving as a reference tool, though. An application that allows radiologists to view MRIs as well as CT, PET, and SPECT scans on iPhones and iPads received FDA approval in 2011. More recently, the FDA cleared the way for privately held Welch Allyn to connect its portable ophthalmoscope to an iPhone for doctors to view retinal images using the company’s app [...]
Another app, SkinVision, allows individuals to take pictures of moles and other skin conditions and receive an instant analysis of risk using an algorithm that dermatologists helped develop. SkinVision helps the person find a dermatologist if needed.
The key point here is the way in which Apple, and similar companies, are developing techs that will radically transform the delivery of health care services....
The rest of the article can be read at:

http://blogs.the-american-interest....ing-accidential-apple-health-care-revolution/
 
This would be fantastic.

"Phones could become diagnostic tools"

excerpt from the article:

....There are many uses for a portable smartphone biosensor that can go where larger lab equipment can't, Cunningham told The News-Gazette recently, and such a tool could make a big difference in developing areas of the world where there aren't labs nearby.

The researchers are already developing tests to detect iron deficiency and vitamin A deficiency in children and expectant mothers, and to detect toxins in harvested corn and soybeans and pathogens in food and water.

Other uses could include tests for detecting allergens in food — for example, peanuts for people with nut allergies — and monitoring disease conditions and treatments, Cunningham said.

There are medical tests planned for use by doctors and eventually patients in their own homes, he said.

"It's important to catch problems before they become acute problems," Cunningham said.

How the process basically works: The user mixes a substance, such as blood, with a test liquid; the mixture is placed on a slide that is inserted into a slot into the cradle; and the app walks the user through the testing steps.

The wedge-shaped cradle, which contains lenses and filters, is attached to the phone and uses the phone's camera and processing power.

The instrument is then held up to a light bulb or other light source and light passes through the biosensor and into the phone, Cunningham said.

"The light that goes in is white light with all the wavelengths, and then the biosensor subtracts out some of the wavelength, and then we can measure with the phone what wavelengths were removed," he said.

That wavelength information shows how much of the molecule is present in the sample.

These are existing tests that are being adapted for the iPhone, said Kenny Long, a graduate student on the research team along with graduate student Hojeong Yu.

The cradle was built with $200 worth of components, but it performs as accurately as a $50,000 spectrophotometer in a lab, the researchers found....
The rest of the article can be seen at:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-05-28/phones-could-become-diagnostic-tools.html
 
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