Future of Healthcare

A little project for class. This video demonstrates what some believe is the future of healthcare.

How is this image of healthcare presented?

Healthcare in the future is portrayed as a wireless interface of knowledge in which optimum health care is guaranteed, and charge cards ensure that every individual can afford to receive the treatment that they require. The video is very optimistic, and disengaged. It showed Sabine’s activity, but not any of the foods she ate or how the technology helps her with her caloric intake. It shows that the future will be a world devoid of food or substance. A world where doctors won’t be able to locate their patient’s room without using a map, or to find their tools without using a tool detector. Surely the medicine and medical expenses would be more in check due to the lack of human necessities, like food and affection. With that being said, the woman does seem to be receiving more comprehensive treatment that could keep her from further developing diabetes; especially essential in its early stages. Alex is reminded to take his diabetic pills in time, so that he can properly measure his sugars later and recover quicker from what ever injury he has suffered to be in the hospital, especially since diabetes does prolong the healing process.

Give examples of the new technologies.

High tech home monitors, updated keyboards with a mouse built onto it, oh and glass; lots and lots of glass. Glass seems to be the essential item in future healthcare technology. From being Sabine’s television and health consultant, to leading doctors to their waiting patients or even paying for the treatment that the consultants recommended, glass is portrayed as being quite important to proper healthcare. This is different because nowadays the most glass that you observe in a hospital is the window between the patient’s room and the rest of the hospital. Drugs were ordered with upmost ease, which may drive some pharmacy techs out of a job. If the medicines need be mixed, I’m sure that a machine could whip up a batch more quickly and precise that their human counterpart could.

What are potential challenges or risks that may prevent the technological advancements from solidifying?

One major factor preventing this vision is cost. These technologies are great, but creating completely user friendly glass with such a fluent operating system will not be cheap! Not to think about incorporating them into hospitals and doctors offices across the nation.  The costs for increasing internet bandwidth (as a soncumer) so it would be able to handle such complicated functions, may contribute to challenges in the integration of these products. In the future, will doctor check-ins through the internet be covered under insurance? At least three doctors assisted Sabine in her med session; how will they receive reimbursement for that?

Viruses could be created that steal information, which would cause mass hysteria because everyone’s medical records are special to each person. If the virus were not manmade but computer generated then there could be an I-robot craze. People would no longer trust computers, and then it would be back to pen and paper until the problem was resolved. Computers are still making their way into the health field, so such a huge jump (from current to what is portrayed in the video) could scare people away. Change takes some getting used too.

The future of healthcare is imminent. Who knows what will be in the doctors office of tomorrow.

 

Russell Blackman