SSHA marks its past by looking forward

“Ontario’s Smart System for Health Agency marked its five-year anniversary this week by laying out its blueprint for the future. The strategic plan, among other things, presents strategies aimed at fostering the growth of electronic communication between practitioners, enabling increased use of electronic patient health records, and helping to avert any future pandemic outbreaks.”
Article
Greg Enright, InterGovWorld.com, 6 March 2008

How Smartdust, Souveillance, Web 3.0, and Personalized Genetics Will Transform the Future of Medical Diagnostics

“There has been a flurry of debate in the military, industrial, and privacy sectors on “smartdust” and the concept of “souveillance” - but no one has yet realized this technology is poised to springboard into medicine and transform medical diagnostics. Here I wanted to give you an overview of what this idea is and why you should keep your eye on it.”
Article
Steven F. Palter,  Docinthemachine, 25 February 2008

The Healthcare Challenge

Last week the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has declared Health informatics as one of the grand engineering challenges of our time.
They list a number of aspects that are part of that challenge, to start with interoperability and medical records. Their next comment is on the availability of information to professionals: “Doctors suffering from information overload need systematic electronic systems for finding information to treat specific patients and decision support systems to offer “just in time, just for me” advice at the point of care“. This sounds very much like the inventories and knowledge centres ICMCC has been focusing on during the almost 4 years of its existence.”
Article
Lodewijk Bos, ICMCC Blog, 20 February 2008

The Healthcare Challenge

Last week the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has declared Health Informatics as one of the grand engineering challenges of our time.
They list a number of aspects that are part of that challenge, to start with interoperability and medical records. Their next comment is on the availability of information to professionals: “Doctors suffering from information overload need systematic electronic systems for finding information to treat specific patients and decision support systems to offer “just in time, just for me” advice at the point of care“. This sounds very much like the inventories and knowledge centres ICMCC has been focusing on during the almost 4 years of its existence.
Monitoring information is mentioned next as one of the tools to improve healthcare. I should have been presenting at the German KIS meeting today, but due to medical problems I was unable to attend. I was supposed to talk about “Mobile devices from a patient viewpoint” and one of the issues I wanted to raise was the fact that these devices should be unobtrusive, easy to handle and if possible self-explanatory. The NAE even completely focuses on micro technology and interoperability once more is a key element: “Seamlessly integrating the input from such devices into a health informatics system raises the networking challenge to a new level“.
In the next part of their declaration the focus changes to public health emergencies, firstly the environmental monitoring to signal possible chemical and biological attacks, followed by a large chapter on disease surveillance to tackle pandemics, one of the other focussing points in the ICMCC history.

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Advance health informatics

“Stronger health information systems not only improve everyday medical visits, but they are essential to counter pandemics and biological or chemical attacks.”
Article
US National Academy of Engineering, February 2008

Earthbound mission for NASA: Public health

“From an orbit hundreds of miles above Earth, NASA’s constellation of climate-research satellites may not be able to spot a flea in the desert Southwest.
But a program that uses space observations to pinpoint the habitats of rodents carrying plague-infected fleas could warn of disease outbreaks in vulnerable areas of New Mexico.”
Article
Andrea Stone, USA Today, 12 December 2007

IBM Unveils Top Technology Innovations That Will Shape the Future of Healthcare and Life Sciences Over the Next Decade

“IBM today announced a series of emerging innovations that have the potential to dramatically shift the landscape of healthcare and life sciences solutions for patients, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and the general public. These innovations are based on new research breakthroughs and emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs as well as through a legacy of storage, server and technology innovation and deep roots in the healthcare industry.”
Article
CNN Money, 24 September 2007