Post Published on September 9, 2011.
Last Updated on April 24, 2016 by davemackey.
I love when technology solves everyday problems – and there is a bright future looming for the medical industry due to innovations in the technology field. Andy Oram has a good post highlighting some of the impending technologies here.
I don’t want to take a position on nationalized healthcare b/c I’m sure to offend someone and I don’t feel qualified to comment authoritatively on the subject, but I do humbly suggest that one of the best ways we can bring healthcare costs under control is by technological innovation.
Andy writes in his post,
“Telemedicine is one of the primary goals of health care reform. Taking care out of clinics and hospitals and letting people care for themselves in their natural environments gives us whole new opportunities for maintaining high-level functioning.”
I agree. We are always seeing huge leaps in this direction with currently available technologies. For example:
- I use the Zeo to help me measure my sleep quality and quantify whether my sleepiness on a given day is due to a lack of sleep or some other issue. This revealed in my case that even after I adjusted for enough sleep I was still experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), which led to doctor appointments, blood tests, and a positive ANA result, and now an impending visit to the rheumatologist to explore whether I’m suffering from an autoimmune disorder.
- I use Noom to track my exercise and analyze my activity over time. This revealed that I have a REALLY hard time losing weight. I rode nearly 400 miles in less than 30 days on a recumbent bike and didn’t lose a single pound.1No, my diet is not great, and I’m working on that…but I’d still think since my weight was stable and I haven’t been eating significantly more in the last month, that I should have lost weight! This deserves further investigation…
- I use the web on a regular basis to research health from numerous perspectives to assist myself in maintaining the best health and being an informed patient when I visit the doctor. For example, I’ve recently been reading about research concerning glutamate in the treatment of depression and ocd.
These are just a few small ways in which technology currently available can help us better maintain our health. But I’m looking forward to what is to come….and a lot is in the wings. Consider, just for instance, the growing use of electronic prescriptions which significantly reduce prescribing errors which can have disastrous or even fatal health effects!