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Looking Ahead to 2007: Technology and Beyond

The Ecomonist presents a special issue devoted to looking at 2007. Ranging from ecomonics to politics to science and technology, this issue offers some interesting and provocative insights, current trends and predictions for next year.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google offers an article entitled "
Don’t bet against the internet."

He points out that "so many companies are still betting against the net, trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. The past few years have taught us that business models based on controlling consumers or content don’t work. Betting against the net is foolish because you’re betting against human ingenuity and creativity."

He describes that the internet is much more than a technology—it’s a completely different way of organizing our lives. He believes that its success is based on the simplicity of its design and the openness of the standards. In fact, with all of the advances that we have seen to date are even more impressive if we realize how the technologies driving these changes haven't even entered adolescence as yet.

According to Schmidt, "put simple, intuitive technology in the hands of users and they will create content and share it. The fastest-growing parts of the internet all involve direct human interaction." He concludes with "trend is not destiny, of course. But as a no-nonsense sports writer once wrote during the depth of America’s Depression, “The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet.” We’re betting on the internet because we believe that there’s a bull market in imagination online."

Don’t bet against the internet
From The Economist: The World in 2007 print edition

The Economist: The World in 2007 Special Edition

Constant Health Companion

LR Technologies, Inc., is planning to release its main product, a patient medication compliance monitoring system. According to the firm's website this is how the Constant Health Companion™ is described by Stan Cruitt, company's president:

"Our Constant Health Companion is portable and easy to use, it stays with the patient wherever they go, it alarms to remind them to take the medication or treatment at the appropriate time(s) of day, displays on a screen with large font the exact actions to take and allows for a caregiver or case manager to remotely monitor the patients compliance. The disease management industry was built around the need to provide additional assistance to those with serious health conditions, and although proven to be beneficial, most of the effort goes to waste when the patient is noncompliant. And the patient is often noncompliant. Many factors contribute to noncompliance and two of the primary factors are busy lifestyle and complex regimens. Our Constant Health Companion provides the solution for both of these situations."

The ALRT Constant Health Companion is portable, affordable and easy to use. It also allows remote programming changes and messaging to the patient about appointments, refills, or precautionary information. ALR Technologies reports that after several months of pilots and trials they completed their first limited manufacturing run in 3rd Quarter and a full manufacturing schedule is now underway with shipments to customers starting in January of 2007.

Information from the company's website

Google Finds Correct Diagnosis in 58 % of Cases Published in NEJM

According to a BMJ study, Google searches revealed the correct diagnosis in 58% of cases published in the case records of the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005. In each of the 26 cases studied, researchers selected 3-5 terms from each case and did a Google search without knowing the correct diagnoses.

In conclusion, "the use of web based searching may help doctors to diagnose difficult cases."

Many clinicians use Google on a regular basis to look up information, to supplement their knowledgebase or inform them of the latest findings on a particular disorder or drug. But most physicians who use Google in its current form at least, would not let a search engine (which basically relies on "wisdom of crowds") become a trusted diagnostic adviser.

The media has had a field day with this. You judge for yourself.

Googling for a diagnosis--use of Google as a diagnostic aid: internet based study. BMJ.
Is Google The Fastest Diagnostician On the Planet? UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog.
This is research? BMJ. T C Winthrop.
Google 'aids doctors' diagnoses. BBC
Google in Medicine

Medical simulator goes more high-tech

The latest medical simulation equipment has the look and feel of the video games many of the young medical staff played in arcades when they were teenagers.

Computer screens are filled with characters in medical garb and people on stretchers wheeling through hallways and into equipment-stocked rooms. The images talk to each other and collaborate on problems.

But this is not a game. This is a vitrual-reality learning platform developed by
Claudia Johnston, PhD, associate vice president for special projects at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Five years ago, she was walking through a big-box electronics store and stopped to play a first-person shooter video game running on a floor-model TV. She had never played one before. She immediately realized that the experience of playing high-tension games like Half-Life or Doom was similar to that of navigating multiple challenges in a chaotic hospital setting.

A&M and Maryland commercial game developer Break Away Ltd. are working on what they hope will become a state-of-the-art tool for teaching medical students, doctors and nurses how to recognize conditions and respond. "Pulse", as it is called, is being supported through the Office of Naval Research, which has put $10 million into the project.

Medical schools increasingly are turning to computer simulation and virtual reality to go beyond the pages of standard medical textbooks. The University of Texas Health Science Center, for example, teaches anatomy with three-dimensional computer programs that visualize parts of the body. Dental students simulate office emergencies on an unconscious "virtual patient" who "dies" if they don't figure out how to revive him within four minutes.

The Pulse project pushes the technology further through a virtual patient named Sam who can be programmed to simulate just about any condition in the medical books — from acute appendicitis to major trauma from an improvised explosive device.

The new "Virtual Learning Space (VLS)," called Pulse!! will provide a lifelike, interactive, virtual environment in which civilian and military heath care professionals can practice clinical skills in order to better respond to catastrophic incidents, such as bioterrorism.

The core design of Pulse!! will provide a totally immersive, 3-D experience that focuses on discrete actions professionals must master. The user will experience critical thinking, peer and patient interaction, and emotional observation, all simultaneously, in a random - not scripted - virtual environment.