NYeC Digital Health: two diverging visions of a connected future (Part 1)

December 5, 2014 | by | 2 Comments

The New York eHealth Collaborative’s fourth annual Digital Health Conference is increasingly notable for combining both local concerns (NYeC is one of the key coordinators of health IT for the state) and nationally significant content. A major focus of the individual sessions was data in all flavors: big, international, private, shared and ethically used. Another was using this data in coordinating care and empowering patients. Your Editor will focus on this as reflected in sessions she attended, along with thoughts by our two guest contributors, in Part 2 of this roundup.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Topol-Compressed.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The NYeC Conference was unique in presenting two divergent views of ‘Future IT’ and how it will affect healthcare delivery. One is a heady, optimistic one of powerful patients taking control of their healthcare, personalized ‘democratized medicine” and innovative, genetically-powered ‘on demand medicine’. The other is a future of top-down, regulated, cost-controlled, analyzed and constrained healthcare from top to bottom, with emphasis on standardizing procedures for doctors and hospitals, plus patient compliance.

 

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Topol-tech-adoption-compressed.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]First to Dr Topol in Monday’s keynote. The good side of people ‘wired’ to their phones is that it is symptomatic, not of Short Attention Span Theatre, but of Moore’s Law–the time technology is now taking for adoption by at least 25 percent of the US population is declining by about 50 percent. That means comfort with the eight drivers he itemizes for democratizing medicine and empowering the patient: sensors, labs, imaging, physical examination, records, costs, meds and ‘Uber Doc’.

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Data streams of the future analyzed at NYeC Digital Health

December 5, 2014 | by

Guest columnist Sarianne Gruber (@subtleimpact) also attended the NYeC Digital Health Conference and reflects on what to do with all that data patients and devices are generating–a natural for her as she is a consultant in data analytics for Encore Health Resources. 

The New York eHealth Collaborative hosted its fourth annual Digital Health Conference at New York City’s Chelsea Piers on November 17 and 18. There I was joined by 850 health-related professionals to listen, engage and see how life science meets digital technology. No doubt we have become a digital culture. Even seated on an airplane, I noticed the gentleman next to me wearing a Fitbit, and we strike up a conversation on step and sleep data and our dislike of the new dashboard. At the conference, Keynote Speaker Dr. Eric Topol, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist and a leading practitioner of digital medicine, shared with us his thoughts on what it means be a part of this digital revolution as a patient and a doctor. Technology changes the scope of individual care. Advances in genomics now gives us answers based on our DNA that will genetically determine the success of medications and treatments. Epigenomics, a molecular diagnostics company, can prescreen an unborn baby of a mother with cancer with a simple blood test, sequencing the DNA, to manage her therapy. I was fascinated to hear that a genomic signal sensor can detect heart attacks and warn you of this possibly fatal event, and that necklace for heart failure patients can monitor fluid status averting repeated readmissions for these patients. Dr. Topol believes that digitized 24/7 patient health data will shift the patient–doctor relationship. Bringing in your self-monitored data, eliminates “the how are you feeling questions” and instead the doctor can confirm diagnosis and start treating the patient. “Patient owning data is a foreign concept and the digital revolution ushered this in.“ (more…)

NYeC Digital Health Conference (New York City)

October 6, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nyec_dhc_2014_logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]17-18 November 2014, Pier 60, Chelsea Piers, New York

The New York eHealth Collaborative will hold its fourth annual Digital Health Conference with two full days of meetings and presentations. They are returning to Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River which will have ample room for the more than 850 attendees expected.

  • Keynote speakers include Eric J. Topol, MD, Director, Scripps Translational Science Institute and the controversial
    Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives & Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania.
  • The agenda includes ‘Big Data in Healthcare: Hype and Hope on the Path to Personalized Medicine’ to ‘Designing Wearables for the Long Run’ with a stop at Xanadu…no, Scanadu courtesy of their chief medical officer Alan Greene MD speaking on ‘Science, Sensors, and Superpowers—From Sci-Fi to Reality’.

Important: TTA readers receive a 10% registration discount. Use code TTA when registering at DigitalHealthConference.com  TTA is a media partner of the 2014 Digital Health Conference.

The smartphone as great healthcare leveler: Eric Topol

August 22, 2014 | by

Eric Topol MD, cardiologist, Chief Medical Advisor for the rebooted (but so far quiet) AT&T ForHealth and Chief Academic Officer at Scripps Health, is no stranger to the ‘big statement’ and is well known as an advocate for all things mHealthy. For at least two years, he has been promoting the smartphone’s ‘equalizer’ capabilities in health not only via apps and ‘add ons’ but also as a storehouse or central repository for individual health information, including genetic screening, which can be transmitted onward to a practitioner, lab or PHR. Dr Topol’s ‘big statements’ were fully on display in his keynote at HealthLeaders’ CFO Exchange conference. A promoter of the ‘creative destruction of medicine’ (the title of his most recent book, WSJ article), he believes that everything from the office visit (virtualized) (more…)

Turning an iPhone into an endoscope

October 11, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

The interestingly named ‘Endockscope’ is a docking device which connects an iPhone 4S to an endoscope.  The Endockscope acquired images of the same resolution and acceptable color resolution. An evaluation team of twelve expert endoscopists evaluated the image quality compared to the Storz HD camera standard, and concluded that they were equivalent for flexible ureteroscopy and somewhat inferior, but still acceptable for flexible cystoscopy. Savings? $46,469–$154 compared with $46,623 for the Storz HD. The device is yet to go to human trials. FierceMobileHealthcare. iMedicalApps (abstract) The Endockscope was also commented on by Dr. Eric Topol in his Medscape article on genomic medicine, decision support tools such as IBM Watson possibly replacing doctors, a robot administering anesthesia, the Theranos fast blood testing system possibly disrupting lab testing…Topol on ‘Taboo Genetics,’ a Frugal App, and Magic Supplements

‘Wired for health’, making case for mHealth

August 12, 2013 | by

STSI (Scripps Translational Science Institute), directed by the famous Eric Topol, MD,  is undertaking a 200-person six-month research study to determine the results of telehealth monitoring for three conditions (diabetes, heart arrhythmia and high blood pressure) coupled with an active disease management program. Half of the survey group will receive a Withings Blood Pressure Monitor, an AliveCor Heart Monitor and an iBGStar Blood Glucose Meter delivered via Qualcomm Life’s 2net Hub and Platform to a web portal or mobile device; the remainder will not but will be part of the disease management program. Subjects will be drawn from Scripps Health employees and family, which to this Editor may be stacking the deck–most employees of a health system presumably are health-conscious.  Participants also include Scripps Health, HealthComp (third-party healthcare administrator which will monitor health status), Accenture and Sanofi Diabetes. Though the release promises ‘social networks’, the only reference this Editor could find is interactivity between the person and the health care team.  Scripps press release. MedCityNews  Hat tip to former QuietCare colleague José Molina (via LinkedIn)

Big data in healthcare’s Tower of Babel: interview with Eric Topol

August 8, 2013 | by

A short interview in iHealthBeat with Eric Topol, MD, Lydon Newmann of Impact Advisors and Lee Pierce from Intermountain Healthcare shows the bright side of business intel/’big data’. All that structured and unstructured data collected on individuals can be put to good use by data warehousing and analysis–a success story is Intermountain’s reduction of induced births from 30 percent to 5 percent. Yet the wins outlined are single system. Eric Topol agrees with this Editor that “The problem that exists is they lack any ability to transfer information from one to the next. There’s no interoperability. So we have a Tower of Babel.” Audio (and a dissenting comment) here, PDF transcript here.

Eric Topol, M.D. to appear on ‘Colbert Report’ (US)

March 9, 2013 | by

For our US readers, health tech/mHealth advocate and cardiologist Eric Topol, M.D. will be guesting on the Stephen Colbert talk show/humor (?) program on Comedy Central Tuesday 26 March. Check your local listings for times. For our ex-US readers, it will probably hit YouTube in a flash. Some good mainstream publicity for mHealth, but one hopes that Dr. Topol will avoid the ‘celeb doc’ syndrome that’s working against Dr. Mehmet Oz. San Diego U-T. This was in the news the same week as Dr. Topol’s whipping out his trusty AliveCor heart monitor on a New Orleans-Houston flight to aid a woman in distress; the AliveCor snap-on electrode ‘case’ to the iPhone+app provides a clinical-grade ECG (snapshot of the actual ECG below). At $199 why this isn’t part of the medical kit on commercial aircraft escapes your Editor.

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