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40 Trends Driving Future of Medicine Medical Futurist Guide PDF
40 Trends Driving Future of Medicine Medical Futurist Guide PDF
PillCam launched
Hololens announced
Oncompass personalizes therapies
Human Brain
Project begins
Fresh, reliable online news and
resources on Webicina.com
Webicina was redesigned to provide free, instant access to reliable online information for
patients and physicians. Healthline, WebMD and others also provide quality health
information. Doctors and patients increasingly blog and manage other social media
channels.
Hummod has been developed for decades and is meant to represent the physiology of the
whole human body. It was mentioned in over 40 studies in the last 2 years. It now also
powers JustPhysiology.com.
Companies are creating platforms for companies to let their employees live healthier lives by
motivating them with rewards through a gamified system built on online coaching and
wearable sensors.
A swarm of wearable devices has become available. Amazon launched the Wearable
Marketplace to bring wearables and home diagnostics devices to the general public.
Millions of units were sold in less than 2 years.
Augmented reality is used from advertisements to Microsofts technology can be used for better
user interfaces in this classic sci-fi. medical education or pre-operational planning.
Futuristic doctors diagnosed patients by having Equipped with a camera, it transmits a live video
them swallow a tiny sensor. feed of the inside of a patients colon.
The Pillcam, a swallowable tiny camera that takes a lot of pictures while it goes through the
digestive system, was approved by the FDA in 2014.
Dangerous Things sells RFID chips and every equipment needed to implant them. A
company in Sweden required all its employees to implant chips to monitor how much time
they spend in the office. Ethical challenges are bigger now than potential advantages.
RFID chips implanted in Dangerous Things founder Amal Graafstra allow him to unlock his
smartphone, home, and even start his car.
There were news in 2013 about potential developments that would allow us to input
data into computers by using holographic keyboards projected onto any surface.
Lenovo is developing such technology, but its still not viable.
Development of tricorders, devices that analyze medical problems via non-invasive scanning
has been in the spotlight for years. The Tricorder XPrize challenge produced 10 finalist teams
that are supposed to launch their inventions by early 2016.
Dr. Spocks device can diagnose conditions non- Analyzes heart rate, ECG, blood pressure, blood
intrusively, just by scanning the patient. oxygen levels and more, based on touch alone.
In time, we will receive treatment customized to our molecular makeup and genetic
background. This trend has already started impacting treatments in oncology. Oncompass
and Foundation Medicine provide personalized therapy suggestions to patients based on
genetic data.
The iKnife is a surgical device that can detect cancerous tissue while cutting it. It means
surgeons dont have to send the sample to the pathology lab but can identify it during the
operation. The idea is great but there have been no steps forward in this space for years.
Robot assistants could support the work of healthcare professionals with superhuman
physical strength and precision. Hstar Technologies developed such a robot nurse but it
hasnt attracted global attention yet.
A robot companion makes the life of an elderly Lifts patients safely, which prevents a premier
patient living alone better. health hazard among nurses - back injuries.
Medical records used to be on paper, then in digital format, but most of them are still purely
dumb, simple text. They should be semantic, smart and inter-operable so algorithms can
analyze and make use of them. Practice Fusion has become widely popular in this space.
Smartwatches could become the next big thing after wearable trackers. Their importance in
healthcare is still not clear, but the Apple Watch and the Pebble sold millions of units, while
Google is developing a health-tracking wristband tailored for the needs of clinical trials.
Wearable devices have flooded the market, but digital tattoos and smart clothes would make
monitoring health simpler and less obtrusive. While Levis and Google are working on
intelligent clothes, VitalConnect released a patch that can measure vital signs for days.
The next step is a real digital tattoo.
A whole human body is printed out in 3D using Organovos printed tissues allow pharmaceutical
only a wounded arm. researchers to test drugs without involving
animals or actual humans.
Pills with tiny electronics that emit a signal when they make contact with digestive fluids. A
patch on the patients body detects this, notifying physicians that the medication was taken.
Proteus Digital Health made a patch available that helps physicians improve the patients
compliance. Proteus Discover analytical services and reports include daily health habits and
medication-taking patterns that can help physicians to quickly identify the challenges
associated with drug regimens. Smartphone apps help stick to the therapy, but no microchip
filled drug pills became available which would provide clear data about adherence which was
the first intention of Proteus.
The joint efforts of companies printing out biomaterials and laboratories focusing on creating
artificial organs (e.g. Prof. Anthony Atala) might lead to having at least transplantable tissues
soon.
Bioprinted bladder at Wake Forest University, shortly before being transplanted into live
patients to replace failing organs.
The main character has an exoskeleton attached The first cyborg competition will take place in
to his body giving him augmented strength. Switzerland in 2016.
Exoskeletons let paralyzed people walk again. Bionic eyes restored partial sight treating
disorders. The first cyborg sport event called Cybathlon will take place in Switzerland in
2016. Neil Harbisson is the first person with an antenna implanted in his skull that uses
audible vibrations to report information to him. This way he can hear colors.
There is at least one good example when a smartphone app is covered by a health insurer.
The insurer is Caterna in Germany. It turns out there is evidence that certain apps improve
patient safety and compliance.
A humanoid robot aided by artificial intelligence Boston Dynamics developed a humanoid robot
helps human astronauts in their mission. that can walk and lift heavy objects.
Google acquired Boston Dynamics, the developer of Petman, the humanoid robot, as well
as robot animals. The company has been releasing videos about these inventions but no
real product has been made available.
Sophisticated therapies need to include experts and methods from different specialties. An
MRI-guided gene therapy that became available in 2014 stands as a good example.
The use of social media in medical communication and healthcare purposes has become
common. Physicians and patients write blogs, leave comments on medical papers and
organize discussions on Twitter. Symplur tracks thousands of relevant healthcare hashtags
to facilitate this.
A radiology device tells patients what % of their GE Healthcare has unveiled a device that can
cells are cancerous and cures them immediately. show organs in unprecedented details.
GE developed a software, called cSound, that can collect a practically infinite amount of data
to create an image of the human body. GE presented the 4D heart imaging solution in 2015.
Finally, we could see organs rendered as they actually are.
Ray Kurzweil and others have been talking about nanometer sized robots swimming in our
blood. Scallop microbots that can swim in bodily fluid were described and demonstrated in
2015. They cannot measure vital signs yet, but that is the next step forward.
Scallop-like bots can swim, using actuators to generate an electric field which propels them.
This is a biological technique involving the use of light to control cells in living tissue, typically
neurons, that have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive proteins. Karl
Deisseroth described the major obstacles that need be overcome to make it a viable
technique.
Certain devices change the way we communicate with technology. The Myo armband
measures muscle movements to control devices from a distance.
The most famous and sophisticated surgical robot system, daVincis new and improved
version has become available since 2013.
Due to the lack of doctor shortages, care cannot be delivered to everyone. Telemedicine
solutions and smartphone applications such as Heal or go2nurse can become the Ubers of
healthcare, bringing the attention and expertise of doctors to the masses.
Patients should have the chance of getting into clinical trials when those are relevant and
open. Trial Reach connects patients to such trials. The long term goal is performing trials in
silico using supercomputers.
IBM Watson has been used at oncology centers in the US. It checks the patients medical
records, studies and textbooks. Then it suggests therapies and predicts their potential
success rates. The Medical Sieve project aims to help radiologists in identifying lesions.
Hospitals as they operate today are fast becoming obsolete. Home diagnostic devices,
wearables, digital tattoos, telemedicine, genomics and other technologies are changing the
way we deliver healthcare. Hospital care should catch up with these trends. A new hospital
in Abu Dhabi that opened in 2015 with the help of experts from Cleveland Clinic might be a
good example, as it is entirely digital therefore paperless.
Gesture based
interaction with software
Virtual reality has finally started going mainstream. When a Google Cardboard was given out
in a New York Times edition, millions of people could experience what virtual reality is like.
People can live virtual lives while getting obese The head-mounted device allows people to get
sitting in a chair for many hours a day. an immersive feeling of virtual reality.