Friday, February 22, 2008

Follow-up on Gadgets, t+ Medical & Disease Management

The disease management blog has commented on gadgets in three prior posts (found by scrolling down or click here). It's not just a matter of population-based health care i.e. consumer support i.e. self-management enabling i.e. patient empowerment programs providing the monitoring devices. We're seeing monitoring devices providing the disease management. Here's another recent example called "t+" that has come ashore, in Research Triangle Park no less. The U.S. based companies must be asking where could this eventually end up?

For more information, check this out.

The Brits don't seem to mind the term "disease management" either. They're not calling themselves "t+Medical Population Care Enhancement Outcomes Optimization Health Solutions."

Hail Britannia!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jaan -- with digital radiography and more web based solutions we have still not adressed several fundemantal concerns -- namely cost and access for patients.

I recently heard the VP of a hospital (and director of IT) say that his goal was "to be 100% computerized in 5 yeras". In my (and many other health care providers) minds, hosptial goals need to be centered around infection rates, low wait times, lives saved, etc.... The patient is the metric that counts.

When we apply the same standard of cost per life year saved to the IT industry (as we do in the pharmacy) we might gain some perspective. To that end, I would like to see how the recent advent of the "server cloud" (large scale computing) can be used to improve access and increase efficiency though better data mining. There is a lot of data on our servers that could be used but is sitting useless. While I appreciate being able to view x-rays from home I'd be happier if I could get my patients in faster. www.waittimes.blogspot.com