The Future of Health : How Digital Technology Will Make Care Accessible, Sustainable, and Human

Learn how the future of medicine is being unlocked—one digital innovation at a time The Future of Health is an insightful and comprehensive overview of the past, present, and future of digital health. Accomplished health innovation leader Roberto Ascione delivers a practical exploration of how the latest digital technologies are transforming the practice of medicine and redefining health itself by making it more accessible, sustainable, and human. The book includes practical, real-world examples from the United States, Asia, and Europe of technology applications, companies, and start-up that have changed—or will change—our relationship with our health and the healthcare system. Readers will also find: How our health is becoming increasingly consumer and connected while technology is empowering patients in completely new ways and deeply transforming the doctor-patient relationship Discussions of how the training of medical professionals, particularly doctors, has changed—or needs to change—to meet the new digital reality Examinations of how new technologies will allow doctors to dodge many of the administrative and regulatory burdens they currently face each day Treatments of the ability of new technologies to unlock new, holistic ways of practicing medicine, with a focus on latest developments such as Digital Therapeutics and Virtual Reality Reflections on how digital health is fostering a shift “from cure to care” and will unleash a human-sized future for a more accessible, ubiquitous, and sustainable healthcare The Future of Health is required reading for medical practitioners and the managers of pharmaceutical companies. It will also earn a place in the libraries of medical device companies and healthcare entrepreneurs seeking an incisive treatment of the impact of digital technology on all aspects of healthcare. Also, the general public, interested in understanding how to take better control of their own health through digital technologies, will find this book insightful and easy to comprehend. "Digital has already drastically changed our lives in areas from music, food, travel television and even social relationships. Health is also now experiencing a strong influence from the digital realm, which will change our way of thinking about healthcare and how we approach it. The recent past has already brought on changes to health that can be considered disruptive, and it will be even more so in the near future! Yet, thanks to technology, disruption will also have a very positive face, as health services will also become more humane, reintroducing a level of empathy that almost disappeared from the field of medicine in the last century. In the area of devices we have gone from heavy and very expensive laptops with computing capabilities that would be considered ridiculous by today's standards, to extremely powerful handheld computers, smartphones, tablets, wearable devices... and this process is continuing with the ever increasing levels of miniaturization and affordability. We are now reaching a point where medical devices are becoming so small that, in some cases, they are designed to be swallowed! Pervasive health data collection, and the leveraging of big crowd-sourced data sets to inform perform personalized health screenings will have a great impact by allowing the identification of patterns, cyclical repetitions and large-scale correlations that will allow to predictively alert people of potential health conditions on the horizon with a great probability of accuracy. Digital transformation can also have an impact on the medical profession and the role of physicians in a multitude of ways. Some would go as far as saying that doctors will eventually almost "disappear", because many of the activities currently being performed by them will soon be carried out by software or processes integrated in the healthcare continuum; this being amongst one of the top topics of discussion for those in the healthcare industry attempting to predict a vision of what its future holds. In the author's vision, digital transformation will instead allow the physician to go back to a much more holistic approach in the practice of medicine, and have the ability to interact with patients on a more human and empathic level, thanks predominantly to having more available to spend with them, having been freed from the bureaucratic and administrative burdens that todays' doctors are obliged to devote most of their attention to. In today's training of new doctors, it would be wise to introduce a new curriculum grounded in digital health technological topics and courageously eliminate or reduce the training norms on subjects that are already outdated by the time the new doctor is entering practice. This digital transformation will also affect the patient support staff: the nursing profession will be equally impacted by this evolution, as they will be playing a significantly larger role than the one it performs at present. Digital health will be the catalyst making systemic optimization and change possible and sustainable, creating enormous efficiencies on all the different processes. The application of innovative solutions will disrupt the endemic inefficiencies of today's healthcare industry, improve overall standards of care, increase access to it by nearly universal levels and, most importantly bring the human aspect of health back into a central role. Throughout the chapters there are practical examples of applications, companies, or start-ups that have changed, are changing and will change our relationship with health. These examples are from both the United States and Europe"-- Provided by publisher **Learn how the future of medicine is being unlocked—one digital innovation at a time** __The Future of Health__ is an insightful and comprehensive overview of the past, present, and future of digital health. Accomplished health innovation leader Roberto Ascione delivers a practical exploration of how the latest digital technologies are transforming the practice of medicine and redefining health itself by making it more accessible, sustainable, and human. The book includes practical, real-world examples from the United States, Asia, and Europe of technology applications, companies, and start-up that have changed—or will change—our relationship with our health and the healthcare system. Readers will also find: * How our health is becoming increasingly consumer and connected while technology is empowering patients in completely new ways and deeply transforming the doctor-patient relationship * Discussions of how the training of medical professionals, particularly doctors, has changed—or needs to change—to meet the new digital reality * Examinations of how new technologies will allow doctors to dodge many of the administrative and regulatory burdens they currently face each day * Treatments of the ability of new technologies to unlock new, holistic ways of practicing medicine, with a focus on latest developments such as Digital Therapeutics and Virtual Reality * Reflections on how digital health is fostering a shift “from cure to care” and will unleash a human-sized future for a more accessible, ubiquitous, and sustainable healthcare