Florida Chapter

BHTY Florida chapter url: https://www.bhtyfl.org/

 

 

April 22, 2020

The current digital era is marked by a complex array of technologies and novel ones that are being developed at an astonishing pace. Regardless of the source reviewed, there are some technologies that are consistently high-ranked and considered to have high disruptive potential for the current healthcare industry such as AI and  Blockchain/DLT. When evaluating their impact on healthcare it is important to consider multiple complex factors such as their scalability, cost, safety, and more importantly their impact on population health. A few example domains where both can be highly beneficial are: clinical research,  pharmaceutical development, precision medicine  just to name a few. The combination of AI & Blockchain has a tremendous transformative potential due to the latest truly exponential pace of developments within both of technologies, a significant reduction in cost over the past decade and their amenability to scale relatively quickly to larger population segments for the right use cases. By using the tremendous capabilities within the AI repertoire such as predictive algorithms, machine learning or neural networks we can certainly expedite this process further and act as a catalyst for improving outcomes, as well as facilitate the development of novel precision medicine solutions. The combined deployment of AI and Blockchain could also enhance the scalability of these novel solutions and could have a profound transformative impact on global population health. In order for this type of strategy to be successful, it would require braking down existing silos within the global healthcare ecosystem, reinventing the way R&D is being designed within the life sciences industry and having an exponential medicine visionary approach.So what are the characteristics of a completely redesigned exponential medicine AI & blockchain-powered global healthcare ecosystem? The key elements would be enhanced access world-wide, embracing cooptition and setting the foundation for an ethical deployment of precision medicine in order to shift from a "sick-care" healthcare delivery system to a "preventative health" and "well-care" system.

 

May 20, 2020

Genomics has witnessed an exponential growth over the past decade and is currently considered one of the major drivers of innovation in healthcare. Given the recent pandemic we are now experiencing a higher adaption and less resistance to incorporate modern technologies in order to develop novel precision medicine solutions that could address covid-19, as well as assist us in managing future pandemics. Globally, we have observed a higher degree of genomics utilization in population surveillance systems, in vaccine or novel medication development and in other novel precision medicine therapeutic solutions.
The same argument could be made for AI-the other new rockstar of the healthcare arena and that has been exponentially promoted due to the pandemic as companies world-wide deployed the full AI armamentarium to develop prevention, treatment or surveillance mechanisms.  From sci-fi level skepticism a few years ago, AI related topics such as predictive analytics, machine learning or neural networks are now prominent on the agenda of every healthcare conference and at the core of many disruptive initiatives that can transform healthcare. Even more impressive is the evolution of blockchain from the financial industry vaults to many other domains and recently being able to cross the healthcare frontier. The ability to leverage the unique features of ledger technology such as immutability, restricted data sharing, proof of ownership, decentralization etc. could become the breakthrough for several challenges encountered in scaling innovative healthcare solutions. Once again, Covid 19 has been a highly effective innovation and transformation agent by quickly allowing blockchain healthcare use cases to be scaled. The medical device supply chain has been a premier example.
These three digital healthcare influencers have the potential to impact global health for future generations, specifically how we define, identify, categorize, diagnose and treat disease.