• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

  • COVID-19
  • Opinion
  • Health IT
    • Behavioral Health
    • Care Coordination
    • EMR/EHR
    • Interoperability
    • Patient Engagement
    • Population Health Management
    • Revenue Cycle Management
    • Social Determinants of Health
  • Digital Health
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Blockchain
    • Mobile Health
    • Precision Medicine
    • Telehealth
    • Wearables
  • Startups
  • M&A
  • Value-based Care
    • Accountable Care (ACOs)
    • Medicare Advantage
  • Life Sciences
  • Research

“Data as a Drug” Will Define The Next Decade of Medicine

by Our Thought Leaders 12/21/2015 1 Comment

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print

Moving Beyond The Pill: The Future of Health Apps

Editor’s Note: Michelle Longmire, MD is a Stanford-trained physician-entrepreneur and the CEO of Medable Inc., an app and analytics platform for healthcare. Reach her at @LongmireMD. 

Michelle Longmire, MD
Michelle Longmire, MD

Medical science is now producing gene-editing technology, implantables, and pills with digestible microchips.  The plethora of technologies will sense our body signals and can help predict and prevent illness.  Increasingly, humans are becoming machines.  We already have wearables, but we will soon have a continuous information loop.  The continuous data streams are vitally important, but they need context.

To make the data medically useful, we will need to create more advanced analytics through machine learning.  In 2016, we will begin to experience the concept of “data as a drug,” meaning that data will have a therapeutic role in medicine and insights and recommendations will be prescriptive.  Unlike traditional, passive therapies, the data will need to be tailored to the individual and actionable.   

The emerging technology greatly augments the capabilities of traditional medical care providers.  Health IT will need to create systems that go “beyond the pill.”  

We are starting to see mobile apps being developed that manage all aspects of healthcare:  drug adherence, individual content, patient activity and other data points.  And yet the mobile apps need to provide better accessibility and connectivity to the healthcare system in traditionally non-healthcare settings, such as in the home.  With the aging of the population and the changes in healthcare policy, there will be a push to develop more sophisticated and useful apps to create data loops between drugs, diseases, and devices connecting to our mobile devices.

The data generated and gathered by the apps will be mined to create recommendations that will be delivered directly back to patients and providers using predictive algorithms. For example, a patient with heart failure will use a mobile app to manage the disease and over time the app will learn the patient’s patterns and be able to detect when the patient has missed a medication or is suffering from worsening disease.  Using exception-based algorithms, effective apps will notify concerned family members about disease management goals, such as activity and diet, so they can offer support.

Just as the Web changed, finance, information, and entertainment, predictive algorithms will change the future of healthcare.  In the near future, we could be processing thousands of data points from millions of humans across the globe. With this revolution, we will need systems that can handle massive amounts of data and process this data rapidly, reliable, and securely. 

We will see the beginnings of FDA approval around algorithms for common conditions, and “Data as a Drug” will define the next decade of medicine. (The FDA will become very familiar with evaluating algorithms just as they have medications.)   It will increase physician reach and scope as well as potentially reduce cost and medical error.  In the history of medical research and care, real data streams have been very limited.  But that will change with people carrying smart phones, wearing implantables, and getting injectables.  We are already seeing the attributes of activity tracking in HealthKit and other technologies.  

Mobile technologies will transform pharma and traditional medical care providers. In 2016 and beyond, smart phone apps will help connect the dots for physicians.  Given that the population is aging, the increased paperwork burdens of Affordable Care, and a limited number of physicians, exception-based decision support will be a critical IT function in forthcoming apps.  As we move beyond the pill to an electronically holistic system, the coming insights will give researchers a wealth of data to look for new disease and health insights as well as new therapeutic approaches.  

Opinions expressed by HIT Consultant Contributors are their own.

Featured image credit: sonictk via cc

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print

Tagged With: Medable

Get in-depth healthcare technology analysis and commentary delivered straight to your email weekly

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to HIT Consultant

Latest insightful articles delivered straight to your inbox weekly.

Submit a Tip or Pitch

Knowledge Hub

 How Top Health Plans Use AI to Save Money and Work Smarter How Top Health Plans Use AI to Save Money and Work Smarter

 How to Build Hybrid Care Models Around Remote Patient Monitoring How to Build Hybrid Care Models Around Remote Patient Monitoring

Trending

Nearly Half Of Consumers Report Their Healing has Been Directly Impacted by Difficulty Paying Medical Bills

Consumers Cite Healthcare Affordability as Biggest Concern to Paying Medical Bills

Mayo Clinic, GE HealthCare, Partner on Medical Imaging and Theranostics Innovation

Roundups: 16 Recent Strategic Digital Health Partnerships

How Telehealth Can Combat Clinician Burnout

How Telehealth Can Combat Clinician Burnout

Q/A: DocStation CEO Shares How AI Will Help Pharmacies Use the DIR Fee Changes to Their Advantage

Q/A: DocStation CEO Shares How AI Will Help Pharmacies Use the DIR Fee Changes to Their Advantage

Debunking Myths About Virtual Care to Drive Health Equity

Debunking 3 Myths About Virtual Care to Drive Health Equity

Provider AI Strategy Moves From The IT Dept. To The C-Suite

Notable Launches ChatGPT-Like Assistant for Patients

Notable Launches ChatGPT-Like Assistant for Patients

Intermountain to Replace Cerner with Epic Enterprise EHR by 2025

Intermountain to Replace Cerner with Epic Enterprise EHR by 2025

M&A: PE Firm Acquires NextGen Healthcare EHR for $1.8B

M&A: NextGen Healthcare EHR Acquired by PE Firm for $1.8B

UPMC to Replace Oracle Cerner with Epic Enterprise EHR by 2026

UPMC to Replace Oracle Cerner with Epic Enterprise EHR by 2026

Secondary Sidebar

Footer

Company

  • About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Reprints and Permissions
  • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Submit An Op-Ed
  • Contact
  • Subscribe

Editorial Coverage

  • Opinion
  • Health IT
    • Care Coordination
    • EMR/EHR
    • Interoperability
    • Population Health Management
    • Revenue Cycle Management
  • Digital Health
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Blockchain Tech
    • Precision Medicine
    • Telehealth
    • Wearables
  • Startups
  • Value-Based Care
    • Accountable Care
    • Medicare Advantage

Connect

Subscribe to HIT Consultant Media

Latest insightful articles delivered straight to your inbox weekly

Copyright © 2023. HIT Consultant Media. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy |