Healthcare Technology Featured Article

May 12, 2012

TMCnet's HealthTechZone Week in Review


You’ve just spent four years in medical school, finished two years of residency, racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, but finally, you’re a doctor! And now a robot is going to take your job away. Not quite. But robots have become ubiquitous in hospitals and healthcare facilities across the country, doing everything from prostatectomies, to hysterectomies, to helping those paralyzed by strokes, to even delivering trays and laundry. But no doubt about it, there’s been some worry. Writing for Slate earlier this year, Farhad Manjoo raised an interesting question with his headline, “Will robots steal your job?" According to another story, at healthcareitnews.com, written by Mike Miliard, some physicians think so.

We’ve all been there. To get over bronchitis, you need to finish your penicillin. But you’re starting to feel better, so maybe just throw it away. Not so easy. At least that’s what PillJogger Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up, says. The company has developed a way to make people more likely to take their medicine – all of it. Believe it or not, the problem of medication non-adherence (not taking prescribed medicine) is a $300 billion one. According to Tara Parker-Pope, nearly three in four Americans do not follow their doctors’ instructions to take medication, a problem that contributes to 125,000 deaths nationwide each year. But smartphones and tablets have come to save the day.

“Every Move (You Make)” isn’t just a lyric from a Sting song. It’s a new interactive online and mobile platform that helps people connect and organize their health and fitness activities and turn those lifestyle actions into rewards and incentives from their health plan. With obesity rates doubling since 1980, and one out of four children considered obese, being overweight is one of the most serious health issues of our generation. Obesity can lead to heart disease, diabetes – even cancer and eventual death.

But experts say fighting it should shift from personal blame and shame to teaching people ways to keep people healthy and happy. And what better way to do it than through money?

Imagine this. You blow into a small valve attached to a box and it can tell if you have lung cancer. No more X-rays or invasive surgery. Just your breath is the tool. Sound impossible? A new biomarker-detecting breathalyzer may one day be able to detect more than your blood alcohol content. How about if you’re suffering from diabetes to lung cancer, too? Charlie Osborne, at smartplanet.com, stated that, the Single Breath Disease Diagnostics Breathalyzer may eventually shut down all, or many, of the old ways of diagnosing certain diseases, and improve the diagnostic skills of medical professionals worldwide.

We’ve all heard about the one percent – those making more money in a week than most make in a year. Maybe not for them, but healthcare costs still have many of the wealthy worried. Jeffrey Young at the Huffington Post wrote that, according to a new survey by Nationwide Financial and conducted by Harris Interactive, “46 percent of people 55 or older who have assets of at least $250,000 and plan to retire by 2020 say they are ‘terrified’ that healthcare costs will foul up their retirement plans, and 30 percent of those already retired reported the same anxiety.”



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