Digital technologies are increasingly being used as health and care interventions worldwide. Many people own wearables such as Apple Watches that track vital health information and mobile health (mHealth) continues to support health care workers in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. This week, we explore digital technologies and discuss whether they are really the key to tackling our health care challenges. We talk through the different types of digital technologies and identify opportunities for these technologies to revolutionise health care. We also unpack critical considerations such as sustainability and data protection and regulation.
This week's case study: Click Therapeutics - There's a Prescription App for That? Digital Therapeutics on the Rise (chiefhealthcareexecutive.com)
Do you think digital technologies are the future of healthcare? Share your thoughts with us at worldhealthinvestigation@gmail.com
Enjoyed the episode? Please share and give us a cheeky 5 star review :)
Make sure you follow us on our socials to get our latest updates.
Like what you hear? Please leave a like, subscribe and share.
Additional resources:
Sanofi Ventures Leads $17 Million Financing of Click Therapeutics - https://www.clicktherapeutics.com/press/sanofi-leads-financing
WHO Global strategy on digital health 2020-2025 -
Follow us on our socials so you don’t miss anything!
Digital technologies are increasingly being used as health and care interventions worldwide. Many people own wearables such as Apple Watches that track vital health information and mobile health (mHealth) continues to support health care workers in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. This week, we explore digital technologies and discuss whether they are really the key to tackling our health care challenges. We talk through the different types of digital technologies and identify opportunities for these technologies to revolutionise health care. We also unpack critical considerations such as sustainability and data protection and regulation.
This week's case study: Click Therapeutics - There's a Prescription App for That? Digital Therapeutics on the Rise (chiefhealthcareexecutive.com)
Do you think digital technologies are the future of healthcare? Share your thoughts with us at worldhealthinvestigation@gmail.com
Enjoyed the episode? Please share and give us a cheeky 5 star review :)
Make sure you follow us on our socials to get our latest updates.
Like what you hear? Please leave a like, subscribe and share.
Additional resources:
Sanofi Ventures Leads $17 Million Financing of Click Therapeutics - https://www.clicktherapeutics.com/press/sanofi-leads-financing
WHO Global strategy on digital health 2020-2025 -
Follow us on our socials so you don’t miss anything!
Jocelyne: Le futur du monde. La technologie for my French speakers. The period tracker to tell you if you’re pregnant or not.
Edna: Well well well, they don't just do that.
Loza: Now why did you say that?
If digital health is the future, that's what we're going to use, making it accessible and equitable for everyone
Edna: There should be informed consent because it's not like, you can just do whatever you want with someone's data and just assume that they’ll be ok with it.
Loza: Hello, globies. Welcome to the World Health Investigation podcast. My name is Loza.
Jocelyne: I'm Jocelyne
Edna: And I'm Edna.
Jocelyne: We are three young global health professionals and your hosts for the World Health Investigation podcast.
Edna: Also known as the WHI. We will be discussing all things global health and unpacking the most controversial health and social issues.
Jocelyne: As well as promoting new wave global health development and equity.
Loza: So ladies, what's the tee in global health today?
Jocelyne: Today's tee, speaking of T it's more about tech.
Edna: Technologie
Jocelyne: Technologie. Le futur du monde. La technologie for my French speakers.
Loza: Oui oui baguette
Jocelyne: So we are talking about digital health. Like the big question is is digital healthcare the future?
Edna: Ooh, that's a big question.
Loza: Let's unpack.
Jocelyne: Is digital healthcare the future. So we've seen different examples of digital health care. I'm pretty sure if you don't know, there are so many ways that I'm sure one of you, all of us have you used for health care, like let's say the NHS app track and trace.
Yeah, sorry to say this energy negative energy. Ma'am no nothing.
Edna: It's just NHS track and trace
Jocelyne: I just want to know, like, if you have something to say, because that's my case study, like nhs track and trace. We're going to talk about how, you know, during the pandemic and. NHS track and trace , right used during the pandemic to track COVID-19 cases and informed people to self isolate.
Loza: It did do that.
Jocelyne: You are not sounding very convicning to me right now. Like just say it.
Just remember people turning theirs off.
Edna: Yeah, exactly. Remember it's not even being a requirement if that first, like what was the point you would go to a
Loza: You'll go to a restaurant, They'll say, do you want to be tracked? No. Okay.
Edna: Yeah. So sure it was used. That is true.
Jocelyne: My point is it was still used people just toes not use it, right?
Loza: Yeah.
Edna: Yeah.
Jocelyne: But yeah, obviously, like we've seen different cases. We've seen different, um, um, apps that have renewals, like in M health, particularly mobile health, we've seen sleeping apps. The sleep reminder for you to go to bed, even seen, um, screen time could be considered something like digital we've seen. Um,
Edna: Period trackers
Loza: The period trackers.
Jocelyne: The period tracker to tell you if you're pregnant or not.
Edna: Well well well, they don't just do that.
Loza: Now why did you say that?
Did you see that man who tweeted saying like women that have a period tracker, um, he was slut shaming them, basically, the only reason you would have it is just to make sure you don't get pregnant. And I was like, our life revolves around men. Is it not just for my own health? That one anyways?
Yeah. That was a tweet.
Jocelyne: It just to track your, what am I even justifying.
The period tracker helps you track your time of the month to check even like any symptoms that things like polycystic ovarian syndrome. Like if you're having some heavy menstrual bleeding or whatever, or sentencing
Loza: You're missing months, you know, you have to track why that is. Our body needs to be on a cycle.
And we need to make sure. Yeah.
Edna: How long your cycle is
Jocelyne: So like, we've seen the period tracker, we've also seen, um, uh, there's also like the medical information thing for emergency information. It can be your in case something happens to you. So you could use this digital health. So please do not come or my digital health people.
Okay. I was just saying, yeah, yeah. Anyways,
the problem now. Worldwide models of health and care are struggling to meet the challenge of the aging population we've seen in the last developed countries. There's an aging population, right? And digital health and care interventions are recognized as key the solution in tackling this crisis using modern technologies and digital services and not only fo they change the way we communicate, but also they also offer like more innovative ways for monitoring our health and wellbeing, as well as providing greater access to personal data and self management. And then it also empowers like a patient empowered us to track, manage and improve our health and care environments leading to greater independence and improved health outcomes.
So by innovating. Oh, we can reduce inefficiencies in health and service delivery, improve access, reduce costs, increase quality of care, make health services more and more person centered. And that was all like personalized medicine for patients' unique needs. So many benefits of digital health care to help so many methods, digital health.
So even the WHO, there was the World Health Assembly, where they recommend that countries and stakeholders to cut that urge to make direct efforts towards creating consistent e-health vision in line with the countries', um, health priorities and resources, because we've seen, we've seen, especially during the pandemic we've seen a lot of like maximum capacity. We've seen, like, even with track and trace, your National Health Service, we've seen that, uh, there's an overburden on the healthcare system and then in the US in the UK, and then you can so many how healthcare systems they were overburdened. So is digital health in this case, any form of technology would help. So what were your thoughts?
Like what were your initial, what's your initial take on this? Do you think that the wall should go more than.
Loza: Yes. Um, I mean, I think the way you say that, um, it offers, I think you're putting health into also like the patient's hands is empowering and it also builds trust with medical practitioners. So I think, and that way it's really useful.
But, um, when considering like expanding it, especially for the aging population, the first thing that came to my mind is, you know, we talk about equitable health is making it accessibel. Um, so, you know, you can have these great ideas and the apps can be available, but they need to actually reach the population you wanted to.
And what I was reading earlier on was, um, a lot of places where the aging population lives. Um, not even just because people assume developing countries are the problem, but even in places like the US um, simple things like the internet, wifi, are not available. So people don't even have access to the internet in order to be, um, to benefit from digital health.
So when considering this, I think it's also important to build infrastructures to support, um, And consider, um, these groups and acknowledge that they also need access to these services. So, but I think it can be the future. I mean, I think it has a lot of potential.
Jocelyne: Yeah.
Edna: Yeah. A hundred percent agree with Loza there.
I think that's a really good point about like actually having access and making sure when people have the infrastructure, because if you don't have it to then what was the point? Um, and yeah, I think, you know, There's various solutions people have in terms of, I've seen things like, oh, you know, instead of relying on like internet and stuff like that, they somehow take advantage of radio waves to transmit information and that kind of stuff.
So there's solutions. So there's innovation and that's why I think, I think as well. Yeah, definitely. We can, we can use more like digital health and will these technologies,
um, Yeah.
Jocelyne: Yeah. Excellent. Yes, we, we all agree for once. I'm joking, I'm joking.
Edna: We need to talk after. We need to talk after.
Jocelyne: But, um, yeah. The w with digital health, the beautiful thing about it is that not only does it put um, the responsibility into the patient's hands, right? I have to think of health with the three RS. I've seen this on a Ted talk before. If it appears in some like paper, the three RS responsibility relationship and requirements. So the responsibility is what can I, as a patient do to make my health care better? What can I do? Am I taking my medication on time? Am I taking, am I, um, am I being compliant with what I'm supposed to do? There's like relationships who is holding me accountable. I know this guy called I think his name is Marcus.
I forgot his last name, but I put the name in, in the description, but he had this app around care. as Christians. And he will talk about how the app eventually, like it helps patients, hospitals to be ours, like have, for example, um, a place where they can track, like, um, whether it be in compliance and it can share it with a family having that relationship aspect, sharing with the family and saying, for example, like my, my dad or my mom can see if I've taken my pain killers today the, or me personally I wear glasses and ever time I go to the doctor, the opthamologist, I don't ever get good news. it's either oh, my eyesight is the same or has gotten worse. I, it, I feel that I'm going to get blind. I'm going to get blind. And I'm like, no, like with this color perspective world kind of like empowering patients or with someone like me, I could maybe have like a reminder, like once a year, like how I see my ophthalmologist are my glasses okay. Are they matching my face or are they do I need contacts or I need, um, I dropped, so I need this, for example. For dentistry, for example, like if you're have you done youbi-yearly dentist checkup, how have you done a cleaning twice a year? Twice, twice a year. So I say year, any tooth carries. Future fillings,
but this, this, this can be helpful if you had, you know, people that would also be like, yeah, I've done my checkout. You know, more of like to empower patients to do it. And that's why digital health comes in place rather than having, um, uh, being. At the age of 40 or 50, you're told that you have a stroke or that you have a huge cow to take out of your mouth, or you're told that you have, I don't know, like even like your fertility, you're just different, different labels.
So apps. Right. So with, with a digital applicant, even like an apple watch or the sleep, um, that, uh, the standard. The sleeping tracker or whatever it is, you can tell how you're progressing. You can track how many steps I've done today. I say, oh, I've done all the panel steps. Great. Or you could track all my periods is okay.
Well, right in one day, waking up and being pulled that you have a short or that you have, or you're not healthy, or that your, your sugar levels are very high or they have diabetes, right. Especially when we're, we're in a w in developed countries right now. Or in, uh, in Europe. Right. So we understand that more, the more and more like we're more likely to die from things like cancer, diabetes have high blood pressure vascular use in general.
And this particularly is important in the current.
Yeah,
it's true. And I think, yeah, that goes back to like having your health in your own hands and, um, preventative medicine, which in the long run, I think can save more lives and is probably less costly for the healthcare system and for the person. Themselves. So I do like that approach of kind of behavioral changes and everything.
And to be honest, even like, when you look at the biggest risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and everything, it is, it is your behavior and it's more social determinants than necessarily your genetics or, um, the healthcare that you get. Once you get sick. And the best outcomes are seeing based on the person's behaviors.
And so having apps that can help you track this is I think really
good in medicine. Exactly like Dawson. You said, if we look to like European many countries these days where we have a lot of people living a very sedentary lifestyle,
The line with these lifestyle diseases
are becoming more and more common and
therefore like clothes, I
Edna: say it only makes sense that some of these digital, you know, wearables like the watches, the Fitbit
Jocelyne: that can just, you know, give you a good assessment of like your lifestyle
Edna: can help in preventing those lifestyle diseases.
Um, and I'll say. I do know as well, like some health insurance companies that try to actually encourage people again, to continue living this healthy lifestyles, because it's like, you can share the data that comes from your watch or whatever it may be. And then there'll be able to give you like some benefits or some discounts or some stuff, which I think is a great way of like, you know, incentivizing people to like, you know, actually want to like pay attention to their health.
So it's a bit of make sure
Jocelyne: because I don't want lie and I don't want like, And I think, I think we've talked a lot about like, uh, being in high-income conscious of how, uh, a lot of rural, most of the, the burden of disease lies in cardiovascular diseases, but also in many like low-income countries, like developing countries, like I've seen a lot of cases of like even diabetes, like my grandmother that passed away from diabetes.
Um, we've seen so many. Even in like in Cameroon where I'm from, um, w the dishes that we have, we have, um, uh, a lot of vegetable, heavy ditches, but we also cook with things like Palm oil Palm, or it's not very good for your, your, your getting on. Three fatty acids from the omega-3 fatty acids are not very good for you.
And you want omega six fatty acids, right. From things like olive oil. Right. So knowing that, for example, if, if I don't know, I know even in coming home, I know a lot of people eventually. Have obesity like the, or, or, or they eventually have cardiovascular problems, they turn. And that when somebody, once somebody uncle five, that dialer was choke or somebody's uncle, whatever, whatever.
But, but they don't understand that you just wake up one day, they'll call you, wish cop they'll call it something else doing that. This is something that could have been prevented from the beginning. So they just don't healthcare would also be beneficial for these groups, not just like, you know,
Edna: yeah. For me, it's just the fact that.
It is true that we like, you know, people have been reporting, there's a bit of like an epidemiological shifts you will see in some low-income companies where the expectation is, you're like, oh, the infectious diseases, infectious disease about like the chronic and you know, like, uh, noncommunicable diseases are also becoming a huge problem.
But I think it's
Jocelyne: like, How many people are able to afford like an apple watch, you know what I mean? So
Edna: it's for stuff like that with like, yes. There's things we can do. I think Justin, you printed out a good thing about like, at least having some awareness around like nutrition, nutrition is an easy thing.
It's a part of your lifestyle and all these things, but it's just to be aware as well that people may not be able to afford all these wearables that we made. Access to Ford so that they can keep track of their heart rate or the time so they can, you know, all these things.
Jocelyne: This is, this is why I really, really, really appreciate the importance of M health.
Now with M health think even like what apple has done. I always back up. I love what apple has done when it comes to like the sleeping, the sleep, um, apps, uh, even you can even, it has information. It has nutritional information. Like if you actually use your apple, apple, apple, an iPhone, an apple iPhone, um, you can actually check, um, you can check what you've been eating.
You can, you can make those things in there. Now I understand that a lot of developing countries, not everybody has an iPhone, but in the healthcare system, if they can have even any mobile device where they can send out that information to their patients, I know most people. Most people that have phones have at least the phone information I got the way I got my vaccination.
I got the reminder, I got a text, you say, oh yeah, the first thought was, take a second. Those get your third. Those could be the same thing of like, you know, if you have your GP or your nurse could send like, you know, reminders or whatever on a, how are you doing? Like checkups or whatever.
Loza: Yeah, that's true.
I think digital health is like, it comes in different forms and it can be adapted to the needs of different countries. I think it is possible
Edna: 100% and it is like, I guess, as we're discussing, now, we can see that digital it's about digital health, but also just taking advantage of technology because technology can then be used to promote health.
Like we're seeing here. Um, I'm pretty sure Justin, you were telling me about. Organization where they would make medical films and stuff like that. And then they send them to people via like, like a text message. Yeah. Everyone would just receive it for free, like just a promotional thing, informing people, I think about like malaria and all these different things, because like you said, many people have phones these days, so
Jocelyne: no.
Yeah. Yeah. The charity is a global media charity and they produce. Really really excellent films. Um, informing basically it's particularly made for low and middle income countries. They tend to meet it the most in term for information accessing also for accessibility reasons. Um, but yeah, I think it's been very, very effective.
Like if only, not only has it been able to, to, to monitor health, but also address misconceptions address. Social such small social misconceptions that eventually affect healthcare outcomes, like male involvement in antenatal care, for example, or encouraging having a, for example, having a, uh, And illustration on the graphic or a visual, an audio visual content material thing that would, that would be distributed in a particular village to encourage men to participate in antenatal care visits as well.
Not just having women show up all the time, but making sure that men are involved as well, for example, and that usually. Contributes to greater my current outcomes like use, um, um, um, maternal mortality and stuff like that. So we've seen very, like, those are very like good examples have been used in developing countries as well, not just in developed countries, so, mm.
And now, um, I was there so many advantages. That's what I was waiting for. You
Edna: know, the,
Jocelyne: every good thing that the downsides now, the number one being patient information, the way patient information is being monitored. We have seen a lot of companies or like digital companies or tech companies. Hm, there would provide digital therapeutics in exchange for data.
How do we feel about that? Do you think that, is it ethical or is it right? Or is it yeah. Is it right to, to request and patient information, such data in exchange for, for healthcare services?
Edna: Hmm.
Loza: Huh?
Edna: It's like what I come, I say, I need treatment for ABCD. And they say, ah, but you need to give us your patient information first. Otherwise
Jocelyne: we won't give you the care. It's not entirely like the study of treatment. It's more of like, let's say I need this therapeutic. I need the service for example, or I need this app or I need, let's see.
We've seen an increasing use of like first shore where it cardboards, like cables can be used. For example, for patients that express hallucinations or mental health problems and sort of giving them a drug that could potentially make them dependent on it, they will use virtual reality cardboard. Um, well, virtual reality.
To make them, we'll kind of like change their basically like to suit them and give them a simulation simulation. Yeah. And it will kind of improve their outcomes or mental health outcomes as a patient. And I'm coming in and saying, oh, I need this in exchange for data. .
Edna: Ah, that doesn't sit well with me person to me,
Loza: I think. Okay. It's interesting because I, when. Requesting data or using data. I mean, data is important for research and our science advanced. Great. But when you use someone's data, you need informed consent. Now consent. When you get consent for someone to give consent, there needs to be like an option and the situation that you gave.
Yeah, you don't really have an option. If you want the service, you must give us the data. Is that really consent? And my opinion, no, they didn't really consent. There was more of a,
Jocelyne: this is how this is what
Loza: it comes with or, you know, using the service so that it doesn't sit well with me now. Data like sharing data and option,
Jocelyne: and then you can opt in
Loza: as more of an ethical
Jocelyne: approach.
Edna: I feel. Yeah, completely agree if I have the choice or even if I can say, I can give you my. My race age than a doubt or whatever it may be. And I'll give you my pre-existing condition, but as everything else I won't give you if I can choose as well, like what I share and what I don't share, then I think it's fine.
You'll have the choice at the end of the day. It's about leaving the choice in the patient's hand. Right. But if it's like either you do it, so therefore you have countries or services that I don't think is a very good
Jocelyne: approach. I like the way you both put it. I think. Informed consent and the option option B because it's, you can't blackmail.
It's
Loza: not, it's not consent if you don't have a choice.
Jocelyne: Um, even if you're obtaining consent for consent obtaining consent. Make sure that it's in the language of the people that understand it. If people can understand the language, like I'll just be asking things that they don't understand, where do you come
Loza: in? Such ways that you don't even know what
Jocelyne: you're consenting.
Yeah. Fully. It's all I'm talking about. This is what informed. Exactly.
Edna: And, you know, I like, as you're talking about that, it reminds me of like the case. I was talking to you guys about this native American tribe, where at one point, like these researchers came to them and they were like, okay, we're doing this study on like type two diabetes.
And they did like, they collected their genetic information. You say, And the tribe, apparently like they just did this verbally where they just said it. I go, okay, fine. It's cool. And the consent form that they signed was in English. So again, to your point of like, it should be in the language that you point a stack check that first.
Um, but then the issue with that. After the study was done, they didn't find anything really significant there, but then years later they had stored the genetic information and then they started to use it for a study on like schizophrenia without, you know, getting consent again from the same native American tribe.
And apparently that tribe mental illness on these types of things are very stigmatized. So they took huge offense to that. So it's again, like we're saying, like they should be informed consent. 'cause, it's not like, uh, you can just do whatever you want with someone's data and you can just assume
Jocelyne: that there'll be okay with it.
Yeah.
Loza: Especially like when you're doing a new research. The genetic material of somebody, like you should treat it as if like, okay, you're getting it again. You should go back and ask them, do you consent to this research as well? Like that's a brand new thing that's
Edna: read
Jocelyne: to exactly. I don't know how they got away with that one, but yeah, it doesn't always have to be like big for big, big healthcare innovation.
Um, um, um, Projects. Sometimes we see it up on, even on websites, you go on the website, you want to use a website, they tell you cookies, cookies, except
like, what am I supposed to do with that? Exactly. And it's the issue
Edna: of like, when I say yes, I accept all of them. I can't completely say complete. I know
Jocelyne: exactly. What I'm consenting to, to be honest
Edna: with
Jocelyne: you,
Edna: once I see accepted, they have my dad, then
Jocelyne: I don't know where
Loza: it's gone and sometimes you need to use that website.
Do you have no choice?
Jocelyne: Yeah. And yeah, sometimes. Yeah. I'm going to understand that a lot of these companies need data that needs to gain access to the data somehow. But yeah, we do need to find ethical more ethical ways to approach it. Like I said before that, having that option to be like, okay, um, in return, can we also have this almost?
So you don't. Every one's daytime.
You don't get all of them. You don't need a dump. Listen, we've done research before we are aware that there's a way to calculate something.
Sample site
don't be greedy. You don't need. Cause if you say you're going to say, oh, you know, this is what all under style. We just need data. We're going to produce the stuff if we don't have data, but get your estimate of sample size, go and do the mathematics. How collected. I don't know how much you can get and finally what to do it in an ethical way.
You don't have to blackmail your data or trick people
misleading. It's very misleading. And then
Loza: it creates. Because then information comes out there or not. Yeah. Your, your data is being used. Like
Jocelyne: exactly. See people we've seen so many cases where people were like, oh, you know what? The government is using our data to WhatsApp. Oh, we see that, oh, the government is trying to come for us.
Can't quite collect our data on these websites. They won't trust you. And with good reason,
Edna: good reason.
Jocelyne: So, yeah, we definitely have to be transparent, transparent about how you do, and we understand that managing it can be difficult, like managing information can be difficult. And I'm going to refer back to the whole app idea that app that kind of helps you put everything in one place, especially in the time that.
You can say, oh, my doctor in Australia told me that, oh, this medication will be good for me. But then my doctor in England told me that, no, it is not. Now. Now they have a patient that doesn't trust any healthcare professional. Whereas on digital healthcare, if you had it in one place, then you can actually see if there, if there has been any mismatches and people can be.
How responsible professionals can be held responsible and also the patient can then choose who they want to share the information with, especially when necessary. Yeah.
Loza: And then also enable communication between healthcare workers and probably help diagnosis better, like better.
Jocelyne: Yeah, exactly. Better diagnosis, better communication.
Better trust and building trust is important. And I will say
Edna: as well, I don't know about you guys. I feel like things that are like digital like that. They last for so much longer as well. For example, when doctors are asking me about my medical history, I don't remember everything in my medical history.
I'm not going to lie to you. Some things I just have, like as in PayPal or whatever, I don't always have like the paper trail to show you. So I think putting it digital can also help with. It's like, you're saying, like we not have like a nice way to
Jocelyne: track all your information.
Loza: Exactly. And some countries do have that where like, you know, all your information is digital and you can choose who has access to the doctors have access to it, but you also have access to it.
Then you can understand your health and yourself better. Um, and I think that's good. I think more countries should adopt that kind of digital system. It kind of makes everything a bit more fluid and it promotes better
Jocelyne: health. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But the, the other downside of, of digital health is that sometimes with healthcare professionals, it puts this barrier between the doctors and the patients.
For example, we've seen a GP consultations being done online. And we've heard complaints about it. It's been good because not only does it reduce the capacity of abuse, the reduces the burden on the healthcare system, but then also like online, like it's very difficult to, um, it's not always as easy to, to fully clerk a patient to fully identify, um, some issues like when it comes to one health.
Holistic health care. Like I could be talking to you right now, but I could be having a tremor in my hand. I could be having a trouble on my tour. I could be having a low vibration going on there, but you won't be able to see it. But looking at my.
Edna: Yeah, that's a good point. No, cause I would say even for myself, when I was choosing a seat like health insurance plans and here, at least there's the option, for example, to actually have like completely like telemedicine as your first like health care option. And when I was having to decide that's what was going through my mind, I was like, well, assess like assessing a patient.
Well, if I hear, or the Zoomo like, whatever, it's not the same as when the doctor can be there. You know, sometimes they just, they need to, they need to touch and they need to just like, they just, like, you're saying as well with like the tremor, like they won't see your whole body or whatever.
Loza: Yeah. Yeah. I think to have a holistic approach to it.
It's difficult. I think there's a lot of things you can miss, but, um, I think it depends on the situation completely relying on telemedicine. I don't think that's feasible. Um, when you go to the doctor, I mean, yeah. Like there's things you can, it's not just what the patient is telling you, but like, you know, they're looking, they're assessing you there, you know, as you say, like touching and whatever.
Um, so there's things that they can miss, but for some cases, I think telemedicine has advantages. Like, you know, people that have. You know, can make things accessible. People that have issues going into to see the doctors like people with disabilities and everything. I think it can make it accessible. I think it's useful, like as a first response, but I think you still need to go in for extensive diagnosis.
It's the planets. I think both
Jocelyne: are important. It's about, and now we're going to get into it a bit more drunk, a dramatic situation. Um, robotics.
that you're in a delivery. We'll listen. You're about to give birth. Um, the delivery room. When you wake up, you see a robot in your privy for me of your environment. Don't say that, don't say what it is. You'll vagina. I'm joking. You get my point.
Loza: And it was a wake up. I see that. Did they tell him that there was going to be a robot there?
Because
Jocelyne: if they do, and people are going to prison, let's say, let's say they, when you were assigning those forms, they pulled you that wasn't there like assistive technologies, which
Edna: some robotics are like, it's not everyday. That robotics is like, you know, the Boston dynamics, the things I can jump.
Jocelyne: Um, we, we do have. I think things that are
Edna: considered assistive technologies already, already. So if they told me that it's going to be like assisted technology, I think I'd be okay with that. As long as they explain,
Loza: I think, yeah, we do analyze robots and we're like, yeah, they're going to take over there.
But I think, yeah, it already does exist. And sometimes surgeons do use it, like for position surgeries and everything for. If it's giving me better
Jocelyne: health care. Yeah, doctor, I think there still needs to be a human they're just the robot
right now.
Loza: No,
Jocelyne: you just wake up and you just see someone with needle, not somebody that the robots with the tools and the knives and the cutting. And the actually, actually, when I was looking
Edna: into this, there's a name for that thing. I think we all see it in TV and movies. It's called like the DaVinci surgical.
Jocelyne: System, like it's a whole
Edna: partitive system.
That's a real thing. And yet
Jocelyne: it's the
Edna: one way that it has, like, it has like different functionalities. Like, there'll be the certain controlling it from like the control deck. And then there'll be able to like see through a camera. They have this 3d thing, it can use like a scalp or whatever.
Jocelyne: So, you know, things like that, I feel like where
Edna: they actually
Jocelyne: robotics.
They're not a full like robot that
Edna: me matching, but
Jocelyne: yeah, they're still there, but that one I'll be like, oh, I guess they're just controlling it from somewhere else.
Loza: I wouldn't want to wake up mid surgery,
Jocelyne: but you know what in mind, I'm sorry. I know surgery does not require as much, um, patients understanding and communication, but please.
I did not want to wake up to a robot. I don't care if you can go to toilet very, very well. And you can control it from the other side of the room, in the other room. I personally, I don't know. I, that makes me a no uncomfortable. Okay.
Edna: They were like, okay, we need to like, literally do some very precisely.
Surgery. Like, we need to very much like identify this one nerve in your body and need to cut it. Like precisely
Jocelyne: you not go to medical school, you know, doing your
Loza: I don't know, it's programmed to be very precise. They could do it better.
Jocelyne: It's not just a robot doing its own thing over here with no,
I get it. I get, I think it would probably be more precise, but I get what you mean. Yeah, I really feel like we're, I feel like in this world, we're really becoming, I love the digital being the future thing, but we're becoming very, very, very techie. And I don't know, especially for something like of a Dyna and a no, you don't get to, you don't get to have a diagnosis.
You know,
the episode title.
One buddy. I have one buddy and I'm trusting
humans make mistakes too late. Right? I just, I don't know. I just feel like at least with a human being like, oh, I don't think a woman could ever, uh, a robot could ever replace a surgeon. A robot could never know fully, but even like, I still think that I I've done some medical. Um, some, some, some health care placements I've been in a hospital.
I've seen the surgical operation. Sometimes your brain. You just need to be human. You just need, I don't know. They just, some things, some, some things that robots can't do. And even if you're seeing that, yes, it's acceptive and it's the other side of the room and you're in there in a separate room controlling it.
What if in the meantime she may need. Some oxytocin release, like by touching her or like, I don't know, like something, I don't know. I just, I just think that they can, yeah. I think maybe like a balance I can low by us not having a whole robot. There'll be like an
Loza: anesthesiologist and stuff and
Jocelyne: stuff. Yeah.
No,
Edna: I mean, I see the points you're making. I never, I think you're right. That when it comes to making decisions, while in a surgery room, I would not interest that to a
Jocelyne: robot.
Loza: Um, yeah, I think I just see the robot it's like as an assistant, like as a country, I think that's a lot of things with digital health. Like I think the human component will always be central as a healthcare workers, but digital health in terms of robotics or apps. Supplemented. She's definitely
Jocelyne: compliment.
There we go. That's the one. Yeah, it can help with
Edna: like, I don't mind if we have some AI technology that has done its
Jocelyne: algorithm and it gives like this,
Edna: the suggestion, you know what I mean? But it should still be on like a surgeon, you know, some human to like make the final decision, like a call, you know what I mean?
Hmm.
Jocelyne: Yeah. No, it's. Yeah. You all safe out here, your double, we need that forever. So any recommendations, any advice that you'd like to give to our fellow globally when it comes to digital health and managing patient information?
Edna: Yeah. It's two big things, you
Jocelyne: know, I'll go first. I'll go. For example. So before when you're processing information, ask yourself the following questions, right.
Is it necessary for you to collect and use personal information and personal? What I mean by personal information that goes for name things like a name, age, um, sex, things that can identify the person. Is it necessary for it to be. And then is it necessary to process it in this particular way and ask, could you use anonymized data?
Mick and melanomas. And, and then also are you collecting or processing more data than you actually need? Like another example that you're referring to. And in fact, I'm also do the advantages of processing these data overweight or outweigh the costs, the disadvantages. Does processing this allow you to achieve the objective that you initially stated, and could you use less intrusive ways to achieve the same objective?
This is particularly important for, um, digital therapeutic companies or, um, in general, like health tech companies need data because I'm sure you've done your data protection training and stuff like that, but it's always worth remembering and checking.
Edna: Yeah, I think, um, yeah, completely agree with all of that.
Like when it comes to the patient management from managing information, that is where I sometimes take issue with some of these things, because let's say even this DaVinci surgical system that I'm talking about it is patented and saw. That has me. That's the part that has me thinking like, I would be okay.
For example, giving my information away for like to a doctor or something like this, but I think we still have a long way to go in terms of like what we do with data that we give to like private companies that offer digital, like, uh, what'd you call them digital therapeutics. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a good start, like bad those questions.
Loza: Yeah, I expect. So I like that. And I think, um, moving away from data privacy, which is important from my perspective, I would say also, um, if digital health is the future, that's what we're going to use, making it accessible and equitable for everyone. So build the infrastructure so that whatever you're releasing people can actually use it.
Um, you know, tailor it for different countries that have different incomes. And yeah, I think that's what my advice would be for people that are, you know, and the world's in the space of digital health and developing. I know the globe, these are smart. I know. They're, that's what I would say. People should look into
Jocelyne: equity.
Edna: Yeah. Also for like the health care practitioners themselves. Cause I know they are cases, especially in like genetics and genomics where, oh my gosh, these technologies are going to revolutionize medicine, but it's like, like we also need to actually make sure our doctors
Jocelyne: and
Edna: our healthcare practitioners are ready to receive these technologies and actually integrate them into their care.
I think that's a key gap that's there between. We have good stuff, but translating it into practice
Jocelyne: can give you.
Loza: Yeah. I was reading that the other day, where a lot of doctors and medical school, they're not getting the training on how to, you know, um, use digital health as a treatment or to suggest it to patients.
Usually it's the traditional kind of, you know, prescribed medical product. Um, but I think integrating it is so important because there are some of the first actors in terms of someone's health. So yeah, I agree.
Jocelyne: Yeah. And also like also for patients like Bloomies patients globals along the road consider using.
No hope offer consider actually using your sleep, the sleep app, sleep tracker consider actually reading the information on there about, you know, nutrition, how much protein you should be getting, how many carbs make advantage, take advantage of what's available to make that available to you. And also that that would help you out empower you empowered to take your health into your own hands.
Yeah, no, I think we're going to honor those.
Edna: Yes.
Jocelyne: Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the world health investigation podcast. I'm Joscelyn I'm Edna and. And we, I feel young professionals for the walls, health investigation podcast. Please follow us on all social on Instagram. I can go here on this call cause cops w on this call podcast, we have Facebook at LinkedIn, our Congress wall we'll talk investigations, and please also subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Do it now right now.
Does it have to be every day, be a struggle. You haven't subscribed yet. I see you do it,
but
Loza: I see you're hesitating.
Jocelyne: You just click it that way. You're going to get our latest information, our newest, I can tell you everything you need to know about. thank you very much for listening and have a lovely rest of the week.