How does technology relate to medicine?

Hanan,

I have no medical expertise, but, will tell you that when my dad had spinal cord surgery, in addition to the surgeon, there was another guy in there. He was from a medical equipment company, and he was monitoring my Dad's nerves as the doctor operated, making sure all the nerves were still functioning properly. I thought that was pretty cool!

There is also a lot of technology involved in prosthetic devices. And of course, all the oodles of monitoring devices that are in a patient's room.

Good question!

My wife is a physician and I am a technology professional. Technology has a huge role to play in medicine. Think about your next visit to the doctor - you check in electronically on a mobile device, the doctor is looking at your history on a computer, it is helping the doctor make sure all your history is incorporated in the decision they make. When a prescription is provided, the technology can cross check it to make sure it doesn't conflict with other medicines you take. The prescription is sent directly to the pharmacy expediting the overall process.

Medicine has a long way to go when it comes to adopting even more technology. Research is underway to leverage the power of internet to be able to do surgeries remotely with robotics. My brother-in-law performs robotic surgery and was able to pull out a cancerous kidney through someone's belly button and then apply a simple stitch and a bandaid. Result - much faster healing, less cutting, and the patient can go home faster.

Artificial Intelligence is now starting to play a role in medicine as well - computers are consistently better at doing certain jobs - like reviewing x-rays, or accurately checking vision. This will have incredible benefits to the patients and the providers.