Smart technology and healthcare: why do we only hear about the incredible tech possibilities?

If you’d visit a doctor for a consult, your doctor could be asking its computer to diagnose your symptoms. The computer would use big data from the cloud to make a diagnosis.

One famous example of a computer that can do that, is the supercomputer ‘Watson’ from IBM. Watson had its first public performance in a popular American TV show in 2011. In the show the knowledge of the candidates is tested: the one who is quickest in providing the right answer, round after round, wins. This time Watson was one of the three candidates, now that the team behind the supercomputer thought it would be smart enough to be contesting in the show. And it was: Watson won.

Although this is awesome, this was obviously not the goal of developing Watson, it was merely a test to see where the developers were standing with respect to Watson’s smartness. Now that it had won the show, the next step could be taken: the supercomputer specialized – amongst others – in health care. It was nourished with incredible amounts of medical research, case studies, and so on. Now, in 2013, the supercomputer is able to make medical diagnoses better and more efficient than doctors can: it is faster and has more medical knowledge than any doctor has.

Techies are very enthusiastic about the potential of these developments, about how this will help medicine as a professional field, how it will improve diagnosis, and therefore treatment. But the use of big data and cloud computing will not only change the way medical specialists perform their jobs. Two examples: in the US, costs for medical schooling can add up to $230.000,-. Will the traditional ‘business model’, of investing a lot of time and money to get a challenging career with high status and authority, still be sustainable in the light of the ongoing computerization of the medical field?

Next, what effect will these technological developments have on the global healthcare agenda: will they bridge or rather enlarge the gap between rich medical practices and the ones with a lack of access to IT? Will the computerization of medicine increase the availability of medical knowledge, or will it make the access to medical knowledge more expensive and more complicated?

I think the debate on the introduction of new, smart technologies in healthcare needs to be broadened. By not only considering the technological possibilities, or the way the daily work of doctors will change, but by also looking at the broader context, including the impact it will have on the global healthcare agenda, and the ‘business model’ of making high investments to become a medical specialist.

Cultural differences: proud of censorship vs. privilege of freedom of the press

I always thought that it was a privilege to live in a country where freedom of the press is highly valued. And I thought it was a more or less universal desire to have freedom of the press in one’s country. Today, I learned a good lesson.

Being Dutch, I think freedom of the press is a great right, which is valued strongly by the Dutch press. In the Netherlands there is left-oriented press, right-oriented press, ‘intellectual’ vs. popular/populistic press, both written and on television, on public and on commercial channels. If one newspaper publishes controversial news, all the other media will respond to this, either in a positive or in a negative way. The press is critical towards the government and towards itself; media respond to each other, keep their audience, the government, and each other sharp.

Today, during a thorough debate in my French class, I learned that other people have very different opinions on this topic. My Bulgarian and Russian class mates told me they were proud of the censorship in their countries, that it is the role of the government to control the media, so that all the ‘bad’ information can be prevented from being published. That it is the role of the government to keep children away from information that can be e.g. violent or pornographic. That if the media would be able to decide on their own what to publish or not, morality would be lost; and a country without morality is a country without a future. They told me that media cause the decline of our morality, of our future. That you see it everywhere around you, this decline, and that it would be good to have stronger censorship to prevent this decline.

It was the very first time for me to learn that (young, internationally oriented) people are proud of the censorship of their government; to learn that independent media and moral decline can be synonyms.

Food for thought on this rainy Wednesday afternoon in Paris.