Interesting Observations and Ideas
One interesting series of ideas that was brought up during the lesson was through the video that Prof showed us which was on the future of the hospital and clinics of the world. The projection which was made by Microsoft brought up a number of ideas about the developments that could be made to the health industry in the video which I found visionary.
One idea that I particularly liked was a table where you could put your medicine that was digitally enhanced. This meant that when you had taken your medicine and replaced the bottle on the table, the digitally coloured ring around the bottle that was lighted on the table would turn from green to red. This would indicated which medicine had been taken and which had not. There would also be a description box that would light up on the table indicating the times which you had to take the medicine, the composition of the medicine and the purpose of the medicine among other important information.
I found that this would be useful for the elderly who may forget which medicine they had taken and how much medicine to take. This would reduce the need for a nurse to come in every time they had to take their medicine or even the need for someone to be there consistently, freeing up the time for nurses to engage in recuperative work such as helping the patient with their physiotherapy rather than having to make sure that they had taken their medicine. Also, it would be useful for people who had to take their medicine on a regular basis such as diabetics. This reminder could also be virtually tracked by the nurse virtually saving her time from walking to and fro and instead accessing it quickly on her handheld device.
In the future, this device could be used in other industries such as in childcare centres, reminding childcare givers of the time that they had to prepare milk and feed the child or taking care of your pet at home which would remind you to prepare their food at a certain time.
However, there was an idea of having a digital wallet which I did not find myself agreeing with. Although it would definitely be a much safer option than bringing a wallet around as it is fingerprint coded and a much lighter option as well as the card information would all be stored in a single card which you could switch virtually, I did not like the feeling of bringing around a single card. I guess there is just a part of me that likes thumbing through my notes or fanning out my cards and whipping it dramatically out of my pocket like the girl in Shopaholic. It is the tactile feeling of having your money in your hand that appeals to me.
That made me realise that even though technology may advance very quickly, there are still certain aspects of technology that perhaps the population may not subscribe to as they enjoy the tactile feeling of the item or have grown to the physical use of the item. In the future however, there could be a shift as technology continues to develop and future generations may see these items such as the digital wallet as something normal and something that is used all the time because they know of nothing else.
Another interesting idea that was brought up was that of telemedicine. Telemedicine is using a virtual platform such as Skype to have consultations with your doctor. This is a rather novel idea because it saves both you from having to travel to the clinic and the waiting time. Also it can be used by patients that have injuries and are undergoing physiotherapy. It will allow the doctor to be able to check up on the patient more regularly. Singapore has recently passed legislation that allows doctors to charge
However, this made me wonder that if this was now catching on as a trend, why was the telephone not popular as a form of telemedicine. Perhaps this is due to the inability of the doctors to see the patients countenance and have the patient do certain simple actions such as raising their arm for patients with shoulder injuries for example which is necessary to make a diagnosis. This would be most useful for developing countries as villagers in remote areas could have access to a doctor without the doctor have to travel to see them.
Key Takeaway Points
One of my main takeaway points this lesson was that of a new measure of global health called the Global Burden of disease. The Global Burden of Disease is calculated based on the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) which is a measure that is based on years of life lost from premature death and years of life that is lived in less than full health.
I found that this was a unique health measure because it measured the health of the country in terms of the opportunity costs that were suffered by the citizens of the country in terms of their life. This is rather accurate as sometimes, disease may not cause death but it causes less than optimum health which affects our quality of life. I think that this measurement can be incorporated into our Human Development Index in the future as it will be able to give a more accurate picture of our standard of living and quality of life.
I learnt that the difference between epidemic and pandemic was that an epidemic was a localised outbreak of a disease whereas a pandemic was a global outbreak of a disease.
A third takeaway from the lesson was that obesity is measured differently across countries. In the US, a BMI of 25-30 is overweight while a BMI of over 30 is obese. On the other hand, in Asia, a BMI of 23.5-27.5 is overweight whereas a BMI of over 27.5 is obese. This is based on the level at which people suffer weight related problems.
Issues for Discussion
One issue that I thought could be discussed more in depth would be that of the issue of drug companies who exploit intellectual property rights. This is a pressing problem in developing countries as they are not able to get access to vital drugs as drug companies have intellectual property rights on them and hence are able to charge exorbitant fees for them.
Another issue that I thought could be discussed more in depth would be that of how we would be able to make technology such as telemedicine available to developing countries.
Responses to the presentations
Siddarth brought up a question in his presentation which I thought was rather thought provoking. He questioned whether ethics delay particular innovations or prevent them which was then expanded in his second question when he asked how we could stop it from going overboard and becoming destructive.
I feel that ethics are an important measure to assess whether a particular technology is out of hand is destructive rather than beneficial. I feel that more than being an barrier, ethics should be used as a measure of the destructiveness that technology could cause and if it does contravene ethical considerations, the technology needs to be adapted to be in line with ethical considerations before releasing to the market.
Personal rating for the session
I found this week's lesson particularly eye-opening because the bio business is not an an area I commonly come across or am familiar with. I found that the direction that the health industry is moving towards to be very exciting and am keen to follow future developments of the health industry as it has large implications on the accessibility of healthcare for developing countries which I would like to help.
I would rate this session a 7/10.
Next week we will be continuing with bio business part 2 and I am interested to see the other developments in the bio business industry from an agricultural perspective.
One of the issues that I am particularly concerned about is world hunger and learning about how the bio-business operates would be useful in helping me better think about how to work with the industry to figure out how there can be a more equitable distribution of food.
Cheers,
Amanda Tan
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