Tag: big data

Bringing the global overview of digital health to SXSW

Written by Tjasa Zajc on . Posted in Events, MEDICA, Mobile, Startup of The Month, Weblog.

This year’s SXSW was the second time Future for health attended one of the worlds liveliest innovation, music, entrepreneurship and latest tech trends festival. This year in Austin, Texas we hosted three companies in our pavilion in the exhibition space – G4A Generator and global FTR4H sponsors BGI and Philips Healthworks. The highlight, however, was the full-day conference, held on Sunday, March 11th.

See the full program here. 

The main focus of the program was to bring the international audience the best global speakers from various countries. After an introduction of FTR4 by its co-founder Tom Mitchell, President of MDNA, the opening keynote was in the hands of Rasu Shrestha, CIO at UPMC and Head of UPMC Enterprises.

The subject of his keynote was “Everybody wants to innovate, nobody wants to change”, and as he emphasized, the biggest danger to innovation is complacency of existing market players. When talking about innovation, we need to be aware it regards behavioral change, which requires deep design thinking. Only in such design technology can be invisible to the user and consequently effective.

Priscilla Beal, Head of G4A Generator, presented Bayers new, the US focused initiative for startups addressing self-care in the areas of sun and skin protection, external pain management, nutritional support and digital self-care.

Johannes Steger (left on the picture below), Journalist at Handelsblatt moderated the panel of patient self-care with panelists Jordi Piera Jiménez, Secretary of the Strategic IT Board at the Catalonian Healthcare Department and Jorrit Ebben, Co-founder & Managing Director, Academy Het Dorp.


Our global FTR4H Evangelist Mark Wächter talked to Brian Rosnov, Innovation Lead at Philips HealthWorks about solving Healthcare challenges via collaboration. HealthWorks a recently created unit within Philips has a mission to generate Breakthrough Innovation in the area of Healthcare particularly Digital Health. Working at a global level, HealthWorks is creating new methods of collaboration with external startups and the Healthcare eco-system to solve some of the bigger challenges that exist in Healthcare around the world.

The conversation on collaboration was followed by a debate on potentials of blockchain in healthcare with Eugene Borukhovich, the Global Head of Digital Health Incubation & Innovation at Bayer, Samson Williams, co-founder of Axes & Eggs, a cryptocurrency mining company and Michael Dillhyon, Co-founder of Swiss-based Healthbank. It was moderated by the  FTR4H Ambassador Tjaša Zajc, business developer at Iryo.

We are especially proud to offer the SXSW audience an insight into digital health development around the world. The session was moderated by Maren Lesche, eHealth Startup Expert, and Ambassador at FTR4H.

Jonathan Lee (picture above), Executive Director of Academy at MaGIC, presented Malaysia. Regine M.A. Th. Aalders, Counselor for Health, Welfare and Sport to Canada and the USA, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands presented the state of eHealth and digital health in the Netherlands. FTR4H Ambassador Moka Lantum talked about opportunities and specifics of the African market. We heard the presentation of approaches to digital health in Norway, presented by Nard Schreurs, Director eHealth, and smart living at IKT-Norge/ITK Norway.

Big Data and AI are buzzwords when it comes to healthcare future. From public health to personal patient data and transparency of medical documentation, to care personalization, to the future of work for clinicians, the expectations on Big Data impact are at times astonishing and at times alarming.

Elena Poughia, Managing Director At DataNatives and Dataconomy talked to Urška Sršen, Founder and CCO at Bellabeat, Anthony Gerardi, MBA, Chief Operating Officer of Enterprise Analytics, Gwynneth Ballentine, Digital Health Innovation Lead, TMC Innovation Institute, Sangeeta Chakraborty, CCO, Ayasdi and Wout Brusselaers, CEO, Co.founder Deep 6 AI.

After an open-mic session, we wrapped up the conference with genomics. Mark Wächter talked to dr. Wang Jingjing, a Product Manager at BGI International. Dr. Wang Jingjing gave a speech on the topic of “The Future of Genomics – Whole Genome Sequencing WGS.” She mentioned that in the field of pathogen detection, metagenomics sequencing provides a single, all-inclusive diagnostic test and allows actionable information to be obtained sooner than traditional techniques. In the future of personalized medicine, sequencing is easy to obtain, while the comprehensiveness of microbial WGS database and data interpretation will be the challenge. Metagenome sequence data will be an important tool to predict disease susceptibility and drug response.

FTR4H global sponsors:

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3 reasons why wearables are dead

Written by Tjasa Zajc on . Posted in Data, IoT, Trends.

Wearables and measurements. Which Point of Care devices are just gadgets and which ones bring actual better outcomes for patients? Here’s what’s wrong with wearables.

 

1. Questionable data gathering

When used for prevention, it has become clear by now, that a person gets tired of using a wearable or a health app in only a few months. It is important to note that this holds true mostly for relatively healthy people, not patients with serious illnesses.

2. We are measuring what we can, not what we should

British researcher Prof. Dr. Anthony Turner, Head of The Biosensors and Bioelectronics Centre at Linköping University Sweden: “we haven’t yet made the sensors we really need, we are using the sensors that we happen to have.” That is why in recent years investors have been more interested in other sensors: ingestibles, implantables, etc..
We are entering an era of sensors for complex chemical reactions and molecular recognition in the body. “This requires more regulation and caution in testing and development,” says Prof. Dr. Turner. However, we can expect more significant improvements and outcomes.

3. Questionable measurements

Apart from data being questionable due to inconsistent data gathering by the user, another issue is data reliability. If you wear your phone with a tracker and two tracking wearables for activity measurements, you are bound to get different results. Similar is true for home Point of Care devices. Are they then useful or harmful?
If you will ask laboratory technicians, they will tell you that Point of Care devices are far from laboratory accurate. But in which cases is that relevant? As Prof. Dr. Turner says, “from a laboratory perspective and for research purposes you always look for the best. However, Point of Care devices for patients just need to be good enough for managing conditions and early warnings. Personal devices for diabetes are not as accurate as clinical laboratory, but it doesn’t matter – they are good enough for management decision.”

You can listen the whole conversation with prof. dr. Anthony Turner here.

 

So what can we conclude out of all this? Wearables are simply a step in the evolution of health technology. Sensors are still promising us all a bright future. They bring:

1. Automation

More and more of them are embedded in the environment. Measuring is becoming seamless, taking away the issue of consistency with gathering data.

2. Savings

Biosensors have had a very long and successful history of miniaturization. “It took 20 years for that to happen for wearable blood glucose monitors, while glucose meters evolved from a huge instrument of 40,000 dollars to a device which today costs 7-17 dollars,” illustrates Prof. Dr Turner. For inventors, the biggest issue is, what kind of business model will work. But the final judgement from a financial perspective is clear: massive savings could be achieved.

 

Want to know more? Tune into the sixth episode of Medicine Today on Digital Health podcast. You can find, listen, subscribe, rate, follow, share the podcast in Soundcloud or in iTunes.

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