Healthcare and emerging technologies

OBBeC.com: Healthcare and Emerging Rich Web Technologies – The WEB 2.0/Semantic Web Challenge and Opportunity

With the advent of 2009, I was looking for something to overview the present situation in Health Informatics. Its time we looked at developing new applications of the technology, besides developing new technologies. Healthcare related use of the internet is a common phenomenon and an estimated 80% of internet users have used it for obtaining health information. People may receive their dose of information from Wikipedia (an albatross?) and other publishing sites like Organized Wisdom and AskDrWiki.

Knowledge body in Health sciences is large and fragmented, and even a treating physician may not have all the data he requires. He needs a way to access all his data easily. There is an urgent need for tools that can aggregate information from multiple sources to improve health care decision making, enhance health management, and produce better patient outcomes. This is one of the main drivers for the use of the Internet in healthcare.

Semantic Web applications and Web 2.0 technologies have yet to be applied to health care. The scope of smart new services in healthcare ecosystem is enormous. Privacy issues are of concern, but use of cloud computing within health care delivery system just cannot be held back.

The role of IT in furthering health rights has not been realized yet. Taking a health rights approach to health IT strengthens the argument for extensive use of IT in health care. Every person has a fundamental right to health, which includes easy access to high quality and best possible care and access to medical information, besides other parameters which have to be satisfied.Technology can prove to be an excellent tool for pursuing Health Rights for All.
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Uploaded on authorSTREAM by drneelesh

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-Obvious uses of data and technology-

Scientists to use satellite imagery to predict disease outbreaks

At last, scientists are correlating what they know and what they see to come up with new ways to fight diseases.

Seen from a distance, both figuratively and literally, it is ridiculously easy to predict an epidemic or infectious disease outbreak.All you need is good dependable information about the current environment at the location. Tie this up with what we already know about the infectious agent life-cycle and the disease process and Voila!- We have our own Crystal Ball.

Scientists now plan to use satellite imagery to predict some seasonal and climate dependent infectious diseases like Cholera. Similar models can later be developed for other diseases like Hepatitis A, Malaria and Leptospirosis.

Hoping more money is spent on such life-saving use of Technology in preventive medicine.
Read the original news item here

-Web 2.0 strategy for Business-

Ten Aspects of Web 2.0 Strategy That Every CTO and CIO Should Know [Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog]

Web 2.0 has changed the way things are or can be done. Organizations need to adapt to these new trends ASAP. A few key points of note for business to survive in the new world-

# It’s not about technology, it’s about the changes it enables.
# The implications of 2.0 stands many traditional views on their head and so change takes more time than usual.
# Get the ideas, concepts, and vocabulary out into the organization and circulating.
# Existing management methods and conventional wisdom are a hard barrier to 2.0 strategy and transformation.
# Avoiding external disruption is hard but managing self-imposed risk caused by 2.0 is easier.
# Incubators and pilots projects can help create initial environments for success with 2.0 efforts.
# Irreversible decisions around 2.0 around topics such as brand, reputation, and corporate strategy can be delayed quite a while, and sometimes forever.
# The technology competence organizations have today are inadequate for moving to 2.0.
# The business side requires 2.0 competence as well.
# Start small, think big.

New technology promises tests for diseases such as cancer in 15 minutes

Scientists at Leeds University in the UK say soon, testing for diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis, could take as little as 15 minutes and could be as simple as using a pregnancy testing kit.

The team of scientists have developed a biosensor technology that uses antibodies to detect biomarkers – molecules in the human body which are often a marker for disease – and they do it much faster than current testing methods.

They say the technology could be used in doctors’ surgeries for more accurate referral to consultants and in hospitals for rapid diagnosis.

Tests already conducted have shown that the biosensors can detect a wide range of analytes (substances being measured), including biomarkers present in prostate and ovarian cancer, stroke, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and fungal infections.

The team also believes that the biosensors are versatile enough to test for diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV.

The technology is the result of a collaboration of European researchers and commercial partners in a 2.7 million Euro project called ELISHA and features new techniques for attaching antibodies to innovative surfaces, and novel electronic measurement methods that need no reagents or labels.

ELISHA was co-ordinated by Dr. Paul Millner from the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds, and managed by colleague Dr. Tim Gibson.

Dr. Millner says they believe this to be the next generation of diagnostic testing as it is now possible to detect almost any analyte faster, cheaper and more easily than the current accepted testing methodology.

Current blood and urine are tests for disease markers takes an average of two hours to complete, is a costly process and can only be performed by highly trained staff.

The Leeds team believe their new technology, which provides results in 15 minutes or less – could be developed into a small device the size of a mobile phone into which different sensor chips could be inserted, depending on the disease being tested for.

Dr. Millner says they have designed simple instrumentation to make the biosensors easy to use and understand, which will work in a format similar to the glucose biosensor testing kits that diabetics currently use.

Professor Séamus Higson, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Biosciences, Cranfield Health, and one of the partners within the ELISHA programme, says the speed of response this technology offers will be of great benefit to early diagnosis and treatment of many diseases, and will permit testing in de-localised environments such as GP’s surgeries.

A tangent company – ELISHA Systems Ltd – has been established by Dr. Gibson, commercial partners Uniscan Instruments Ltd and Technology Translators Ltd to bring the technology to the market.

Dr. Gibson says the analytes used in the research simply scratch the surface of the potential applications – the team have also shown that it can be used in environmental applications, for example to test for herbicides or pesticides in water and antibiotics in milk.