January 27, 2012 at 15:15Medicine + IT: what can be done with data
Dr. Kraft is a person who talks about the future of medicine in relation to IT. In the last topic was his interview for Habr and a couple of announcements, in this - a report on the results of a lecture in Russia.
One of the main topics of the lecture was the exponential increase in the speed of technological progress: now there are many times more data and opportunities than we can process. We need people and companies who understand how all this can be used. Dr. Kraft, in fact, says the area is completely open to new projects and ideas. Mobile medicine is here.
Dr. Kraft believes that modern healthcare is wasteful and ineffective:
To solve such problems, the University of the Singularity was created - a place where new integrative technologies are considered to solve global problems, for example, poverty, pandemics, lack of energy or environmental pollution, and so on. Concrete projects flow from the university’s mission, here are a couple of examples:
Today, more than 20 thousand mobile applications are available for download. They help to determine whether medications have been tampered with, keep a diet, remind you to take medications, and so on. Even more interesting is how mobile devices and medical equipment are integrated. An example is a glucometer that connects to an iPhone for the sake of a screen, for logging and sending data to doctors.
Dr. Kraft calls it the era of mobile health. Major players in the technology world (for example, Bill Gates and Aneshes Chopra) are already interested in developing the field. Medicine is distributed outside hospitals to become more mobile (Health Summit).
Quantitative example : a complete brain reconstruction took 2 weeks 2 years ago, now it is 4-5 days. Qualitative example : it is possible to carry out reconstruction for a patient, and based on the model to practice the operation.
Daniel was a military medical pilot for a long time and says that “we learn from the world of flights” - we simulate processes in the same way as we simulated flights. This gives us the opportunity to practice in situations that arise only occasionally, for example once in a thousand operations.
True, today there are more urgent problems: 70% of all medical documentation still exists on paper: banal digitization of known data will enable quick and complete access to them from anywhere in the world.
AI for medicine is the ability to systematize a lot of data and predict the situation with the patient. At the recent CES 2012, X Prize and Quallcomm introduced the physician’s artificial intelligence integrated into a mobile device. It’s clear that when Kraft talks about AI, he means complex expert programs, but the benefit from them is already obvious - as well as potential.
Microsoft Kinect is already used for healthcare, for example, for recognizing signs of a stroke or for physiotherapy. It is worth adding that doctors and military are always interested in convenient interfaces: natural and quick access to data, intuitive controls, accuracy and other pluses always mean time saved, and, therefore, saved lives.
Monitoring your sleep (Lark) and your health (Fitbit) already exists. There are shaky brushes that allow you to collect statistics about how often you brush your teeth. They can be used to monitor how often your children brush their teeth.
Another example: earlier one scan occupied 50 Mb, now the data is already at 20 Gb, and very soon it will be at 1 Tb. Proper use of these data allows you to replace invasive methods with non-invasive procedures: virtual colonoscopy using computed tomography images (external sensors are used instead of swallowing the probe), virtual angiogram - non-invasive imaging of the heart muscle and designing to search for abnormalities and test possible treatment methods (HeartFlow, Stanford) .
In the future, health monitoring will be implemented through almost everything: clothes, watches and even tattoos with an indication of infections. The issue is data collection and processing. The information can be used both to prevent critical cases in intensive care and for household items such as diapers that send you SMS that it is time to change them.
Augmented reality can show you how you will look if you stay on a diet or if you don't quit smoking.
There is a good example from the military industry - a wounded soldier was diagnosed in time and tested by a robot right on the battlefield.
Social networks in medicine and game mechanics will help to more effectively involve patients in the struggle for health.
Personalized drugs are planned - a cocktail of drugs based on individual genotype parameters to increase the effectiveness of treatment. Research in the use of stem cells will soon make it possible to “reprogram” any body cell into the stem, which means the emergence of “rejuvenating apples”. 3D printing of organs and tissues will make it possible to solve many medical problems. Remote examination of patients will save them from having to go to the hospital. Medicine will become available in remote regions and where there are no qualified personnel.
Summarizing, Dr. Kraft noted that our tasks are to search for convergence (combination of technologies), use data and relate patterns, plan taking into account exponential growth. Daniel believes that right now begins the time when the competent processing of information becomes an essential part of medicine: and this is a direct intersection with IT. As he said in a previous interview, the doctor of the future is a programmer who knows how to repair a wound in a field.
The Knowledgestream.ru project was created in order to provide a direct flow of knowledge about modern technologies for business. Several times a month, such events are held at the Digital October venue, where you can say hello to the lecturer, listen to his report, and then ask any questions.
This lecture was the first to use 3D holographic telepresence technology (more details - musion.co.uk, high-definition 3D holographic video). You can see the most striking examples in the second segment of the video lecture .
Next month, more lectures are expected: they can be found here or in the "Events" of Habr.
One of the main topics of the lecture was the exponential increase in the speed of technological progress: now there are many times more data and opportunities than we can process. We need people and companies who understand how all this can be used. Dr. Kraft, in fact, says the area is completely open to new projects and ideas. Mobile medicine is here.
In whatever field you work, whether it be computer science or game creation or data processing, statistics, robotics, I urge you to think about how to apply your skills in these areas to the world of health and medicine.
The main paradigms of technology development
- Faster : all medical processes are accelerated. For example, an ECG can be taken at home by simply attaching an iPhone with a sensor and transferring data to a doctor in a matter of seconds.
- Smaller : devices with which diagnostics and monitoring are performed are reduced in size.
- Cheaper : the greater the accuracy of the tests, the less they need to be done. The sooner you can catch the signs of the disease, the less money will be spent on its treatment. In fact, medicine will become largely preventive (this trend has been observed since the beginning of the last century).
- Better : the cheaper and faster everything becomes, the more opportunities there are for introducing personalized medicine based on the human genocode.
Contemporary issues
- High cost of healthcare (medicine can be several times cheaper)
- Low availability of medical care (it should be faster and already in place)
- The difference in medical approaches.
- Ineffective use of patient information.
- Fragmentation among the doctors themselves: often do not communicate with each other
- In the USA they do all possible tests in order to avoid legal problems (and this reduces effectiveness).
- Any forward movement is limited by regulatory restrictions and a lack of funds.
- The structure of the healthcare system is confusing and ill-conceived.
Dr. Kraft believes that modern healthcare is wasteful and ineffective:
We spend a huge amount of money (up to 80% of health funds) on the treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes or heart disease. Using new technologies, we will be able to direct more money to prevent the emergence of diseases.
To solve such problems, the University of the Singularity was created - a place where new integrative technologies are considered to solve global problems, for example, poverty, pandemics, lack of energy or environmental pollution, and so on. Concrete projects flow from the university’s mission, here are a couple of examples:
- MATTERNET - Delivery of vaccines to remote areas using remotely controlled aircraft / robots.
- Getaround - “the future of shared transport” - share your car.
Mobile technology for medicine
Today, more than 20 thousand mobile applications are available for download. They help to determine whether medications have been tampered with, keep a diet, remind you to take medications, and so on. Even more interesting is how mobile devices and medical equipment are integrated. An example is a glucometer that connects to an iPhone for the sake of a screen, for logging and sending data to doctors.
Dr. Kraft calls it the era of mobile health. Major players in the technology world (for example, Bill Gates and Aneshes Chopra) are already interested in developing the field. Medicine is distributed outside hospitals to become more mobile (Health Summit).
- Today there is already a digital stethoscope - a case for iPhone for $ 10 and a free application make it possible to conduct an ECG using a phone. Modifications for the phone’s camera allowing you to examine the ear and send this data to doctors or conduct an ophthalmological examination and even give a recommendation for glasses.
- More and more patients are using online methods: these are video channel consultations and sending data from their medical devices.
- New technologies are based on computer capacities, and the more powerful, faster and smarter computers become, the more opportunities there are for analyzing and visualizing situations. Using MRI scans and molecular imaging, you can combine data to create three-dimensional reconstructions of problem areas and a better understanding of these problems.
Quantitative example : a complete brain reconstruction took 2 weeks 2 years ago, now it is 4-5 days. Qualitative example : it is possible to carry out reconstruction for a patient, and based on the model to practice the operation.
Daniel was a military medical pilot for a long time and says that “we learn from the world of flights” - we simulate processes in the same way as we simulated flights. This gives us the opportunity to practice in situations that arise only occasionally, for example once in a thousand operations.
True, today there are more urgent problems: 70% of all medical documentation still exists on paper: banal digitization of known data will enable quick and complete access to them from anywhere in the world.
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
AI for medicine is the ability to systematize a lot of data and predict the situation with the patient. At the recent CES 2012, X Prize and Quallcomm introduced the physician’s artificial intelligence integrated into a mobile device. It’s clear that when Kraft talks about AI, he means complex expert programs, but the benefit from them is already obvious - as well as potential.
Game technology in medicine
Microsoft Kinect is already used for healthcare, for example, for recognizing signs of a stroke or for physiotherapy. It is worth adding that doctors and military are always interested in convenient interfaces: natural and quick access to data, intuitive controls, accuracy and other pluses always mean time saved, and, therefore, saved lives.
Monitoring your sleep (Lark) and your health (Fitbit) already exists. There are shaky brushes that allow you to collect statistics about how often you brush your teeth. They can be used to monitor how often your children brush their teeth.
It's not about the data, but about what you do with it.
Another example: earlier one scan occupied 50 Mb, now the data is already at 20 Gb, and very soon it will be at 1 Tb. Proper use of these data allows you to replace invasive methods with non-invasive procedures: virtual colonoscopy using computed tomography images (external sensors are used instead of swallowing the probe), virtual angiogram - non-invasive imaging of the heart muscle and designing to search for abnormalities and test possible treatment methods (HeartFlow, Stanford) .
In the future, health monitoring will be implemented through almost everything: clothes, watches and even tattoos with an indication of infections. The issue is data collection and processing. The information can be used both to prevent critical cases in intensive care and for household items such as diapers that send you SMS that it is time to change them.
Augmented reality can show you how you will look if you stay on a diet or if you don't quit smoking.
Devices are reduced in size
- The accelerometer once cost $ 100,000, and now there is in every phone.
- The camera is inserted into the capsule and can be swallowed.
- Pacemakers can now be programmed from a mobile phone.
- A blood test lab connected to a telephone.
There is a good example from the military industry - a wounded soldier was diagnosed in time and tested by a robot right on the battlefield.
Era of Medicine 4P
- Predictive - assuming problems before they occur.
- Preventive - fix problems before they appear.
- Personalised - individual medicine.
- Participatory - effective participation in the process of diagnosing and treating all the necessary people.
Social networks in medicine and game mechanics will help to more effectively involve patients in the struggle for health.
Medicine will become exponentially better
Personalized drugs are planned - a cocktail of drugs based on individual genotype parameters to increase the effectiveness of treatment. Research in the use of stem cells will soon make it possible to “reprogram” any body cell into the stem, which means the emergence of “rejuvenating apples”. 3D printing of organs and tissues will make it possible to solve many medical problems. Remote examination of patients will save them from having to go to the hospital. Medicine will become available in remote regions and where there are no qualified personnel.
Summarizing, Dr. Kraft noted that our tasks are to search for convergence (combination of technologies), use data and relate patterns, plan taking into account exponential growth. Daniel believes that right now begins the time when the competent processing of information becomes an essential part of medicine: and this is a direct intersection with IT. As he said in a previous interview, the doctor of the future is a programmer who knows how to repair a wound in a field.
Event Brief
The Knowledgestream.ru project was created in order to provide a direct flow of knowledge about modern technologies for business. Several times a month, such events are held at the Digital October venue, where you can say hello to the lecturer, listen to his report, and then ask any questions.
This lecture was the first to use 3D holographic telepresence technology (more details - musion.co.uk, high-definition 3D holographic video). You can see the most striking examples in the second segment of the video lecture .
Next month, more lectures are expected: they can be found here or in the "Events" of Habr.