Could these three advancements potentially reshape your medical routine?
Gadgets for a Healthy Future: Innovations Redefining Patient Care in 2017
Imagine a world where technology isn't just an aid, but a powerful partner in healthcare. At the WIRED Health conference in London, the focus was on placing the patient at the center of care, addressing individual needs with innovative technology.
While health challenges persist across the globe, harnessing technology ensures a tailored approach to addressing each patient's unique requirements. From managing Type 2 diabetes, delving into the world of personalized molecular diagnostics for cancer, to soothing music for anxiety, WIRED Health spotlighted the technological advancements that could transform patient care.
Health Revolution through Personalization
"We're here to leverage technologies and place them in the hands of providers and patients," said Dr. Jessica Mega of Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, addressing the audience at the WIRED Health main stage. "From a provider standpoint, how do we create solutions with the user in mind?" she asked.
Verily's response lies in their newly launched platform, Onduo, developed in collaboration with Sanofi. Targeting Type 2 diabetes patients, Onduo creates personalized solutions to help individuals make smarter decisions about managing their condition, using devices, software, and traditional medicine to improve medication management, health goals, and healthy behaviors.
continuous Glucose Monitor: Making Life Less Disruptive
For Type 1 diabetes patients like Randall Barker of Iowa Park, TX, continuous glucose monitoring can be challenging and inconvenient. To address this, Verily is developing a miniaturized continuous glucose monitor in partnership with Dexcom, set to replace the traditional bulky devices.
Continuous monitoring with this device would not only help improve behavioral compliance but may also benefit patients with poorly controlled diabetes by providing more data for clinicians to help titrate medication and avoid hyperglycemia.
Guardant Health: Cancer Conquerors
Addressing the slow progress in accurate cancer diagnostics, Helmy Eltoukhy, CEO of Guardant Health, discussed their digital next-generation sequencing platform designed to identify specific mutations associated with solid tumors. This system helps identify resistance to targeted therapies, avoiding tissue biopsies associated with discomfort, high costs, and risks.
Guardant Health is also conducting ambitious projects like LUNAR, collecting genomic data from tens of thousands of people with or at high risk of early-stage cancer, with the aim of better understanding tumor evolution and enabling the development of novel therapeutics.
Sync Project: Music, Machine Learning, and Medicine
Music therapy has been beneficial for managing pain, anxiety, and treating neurological conditions. Marko Ahtisaari, CEO of Sync Project, seeks to reinvent music as precision medicine - using sound for personal health and wellness, as well as clinical conditions.
Sync Project is exploring how music can impact heart rate, brain activity, and sleep patterns. By applying machine learning to this data, the company aims to develop personalized music therapeutics.
Could these technological advancements in healthcare pave the way for a future where technology and healthcare seamlessly blend to create a healthcare system centered on patients and their unique needs? The answer lies in continued innovation and a commitment to understanding the individual.
- Dr. Jessica Mega from Verily emphasized the importance of tech solutions being designed with patients in mind, stating, "From a provider standpoint, how do we create solutions with the user in mind?"
- Verily's platform Onduo, in collaboration with Sanofi, is targeting Type 2 diabetes patients, offering personalized care through devices, software, and traditional medicine to improve medication management and healthy behaviors.
- Guardant Health is utilizing digital next-generation sequencing to identify specific cancer mutations, thereby helping doctors avoid tissue biopsies and potentially offering more effective targeted therapies for cancer patients.
- Sync Project aims to apply machine learning to music therapy, personalizing music for individual health and wellness purposes, including managing anxiety and influencing heart rate, brain activity, and sleep patterns.
