I have given many presentations about the future
of the global digital economy and the opportunities being presented as we leave
the internet age and move into the information age proper.
One of the great needs for societies right now -
and was discussed in my Africa Rising article - is the delivery of an
effective, low cost healthcare service to hundreds of millions of remote
citizens. Remote doesn't just mean ‘regional’ it can also mean large ‘urban’
environments.
And this need will grow as access to specialist
advice becomes harder to come by.
This BBC video report is about a new approach to
stop Pakistani women doctors leaving their profession when they wish start a
family.
At first this seems a culturally driven gender
issue - which it is. But it is also a story of losing a critically important
skilled resource and one that provides a irreplaceable service to women
patients in that society.
It is also a story about the migration of health
services in remote or inaccessible communities to the online digital medium by
establishing in local health centres video based doctor patient interactions.
This report shows women doctors in Pakistan can
also have families and even more patients can be seen that what might have been
possible in the traditional face to face service.
That's seems like a win win.
But more importantly it sets the precedent for
where remotely delivered health care will move towards and that is:
●
Artificial intelligence cloud based services delivered
either through an interaction facility provided in the local health centre or,
●
Artificial intelligence cloud
based services delivered directly to a patient's smartphone.
Smartphones already provide applications that can
monitor patient vitals - by breathing in, by touching or by taking an image.
If all citizens opt in to a health care service
and provide their personal details - which may include DNA - then they can also
provide to the AI service their symptoms through their smartphone and
associated apps.
How does it work?
The AI service does an instant analysis of the
submitted symptoms and returns a diagnosis response immediately and directly to
the patient - or as a part of the
service if authorised may automatically
send a referral to their
registered local health centre or pharmacy( including payment).
But if the parameters of the patients symptoms
fall outside the AI services ability to interpret then it can spit out a
request for augmented ( human) practitioner analysis and allow a direct
practitioner response to the patient or their local medical service.
The important point here is that these ‘expert
practitioners’ can be located anywhere in the world and will log on to flag
their availability for analysis services
just as Uber drivers do for rides. This could include women Pakistani doctors living in the UK, Australia, US or the Middle East - an entire diaspora workforce could be opened up!
And the AI health services can be created and
delivered from anywhere in the world and to any smart phone. Because we are
talking millions( hundreds of millions?)
of patients the costs will be very low and available universally 24
hours a day. This would never be able to be provided in the traditional manner.
The final benefit of this AI based service will
be the ability to identify trends and triggers in SARS, ebola, Zyka style
epidemic style events.
Health officials and researchers will know the
gender, age, location, symptoms and common causes of every situation within
hours and certainly within days of these events.
This means that these communicable diseases and
epidemics will be better understood more easily and more quickly and responses
for containing contagion and or prevention will be rapid.
How good is that!
So we applaud the wonderful solution our
Pakistani women doctors have found to meet their own needs with their patients
needs but it really just is the pointer towards the beginning of the next generation
of AI cloud based-smartphone accessible healthcare delivery coming with the
information age.
End
No comments:
Post a Comment