The Many Ways New Technology Is Improving Medicine

Marie Ellis of Medical News Today has written a very interesting piece entitled Wired Health: how are innovative technologies disrupting health care? In this article, Ellis explains disruptive innovation and examines the role that technology is playing in the way we look at health care.

The term “disruptive innovation” was coined by Harvard Professor Clayton M. Christensen. It refers to the ways in which technological advances in the field of medicine can bring about change because of improvement in simplicity, accessibility and affordability.

Some of the many new technologies discussed in this article include:

• The K1 Syringe: This syringe, developed by Marc Koska, founder of the LifeSaver program, is impossible to reuse thanks to its auto-disable mechanism. The World Health Organization (WHO) will be mandating the use of this type of syringe by 2020. It is expected to greatly reduce the number of people who are sickened or die each year (currently about 1.3 million people worldwide) because of complications following injection with an infected syringe.
• Genomics and Cell Therapy: Human Longevity, Inc (HLI) is a company that is working on reducing the instance of age-related decline through studies of the human genotypes and phenotypes. The company is working on compiling a database of health records for more than 1 million people so that they might be able to interpret the meaning of the human genome. Brad Perkins of HLI states that over the next 10 years, “there is potential to generate as many insights into health and disease as there has been in the last 100 years.” He expects this research to contribute to longer expected life spans.
• The Starstim Cap: The Starstim cap, which was developed by a company called Neuroelectrics, delivers a low current of electricity to the brain to act as an electrocephalograpghy and accelerometry recording system. The cap is simple and portable and can be used in the hospital or at home. It is designed to enable patients to balance their EEGs through neurofeedback and has many practical applications including use in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), stroke rehabilitation, depression, addiction, cognitive enhancement and chronic pain.

• A Smartphone Otoscope: With this technology, parents can use an attachment on their cell phones to take and send a photograph of their child’s inner-ear to their pediatrician to review. This will enable parents to get treatment for their child’s ear infection without the need to drive to the doctor’s office.

You can learn about these and many other innovations in medical technology by reading the full article here.