O F F IC E S PAC E
How Telemedicine Intersects WITH AI, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND PRECISION MEDICINE
Wri t t en by Dr. Sherry-A nn B ro wn, M D, P H D
Editor Note: The future of medicine will be based on disruptive technology - will we lead, follow, or be left behind?
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elemedicine will eventually become a more prominent part of our clinical practice, with the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media and networks, and integration with precision medicine in electronic health records. As clinicians and scientists, we should be thinking about where and how these four innovative strategies intersect, so that we can continue to not only contribute to the conversation and direction of these strategies, but also lead them. Remote monitoring of physiology is an important component of telemedicine or telehealth. If we are to care for our patients remotely in telemedicine, then we must be able to have data on which to make decisions. Some of the data come from remote monitoring, while some may come from information 1 2 | J A N UA RY/ F E B RUARY 2020
we may already have in electronic health records, in addition to the current history during a consultation. The remote monitoring can also be at the time of the consultation, or monitoring can occur outside of the consultation in real-time continuously, or for a discrete portion of time. The remote monitoring may address different areas of physiology, such as blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate and rhythm, and so on. With this information, the healthcare professional can potentially make adequate recommendations for prevention and management of disease. Institutions should also embrace the role of AI in remote monitoring of physiology and use of this data in real-time for prediction of disease. Being able to foresee illness or dysfunction with predictive analytics and AI may provide us with
the opportunity to preempt and prevent imminent decrease in quality or quantity of life (within the scope of individuals’ values and goals, of course). Cooperation between AI and mobile health (mHealth) or digital health can maximize potential in remote monitoring. AI algorithms can help guide the performance of echocardiograms, even in the hands of novices or amateurs. This could be particularly useful if an experienced sonographer or echocardiographer is not immediately physically available on site. An individual could have a telemedicine consultation with an experienced cardiologist, while a novice physically on-site with the patient could perform a brief, limited AI-assisted echocardiogram. ECG and other physiological data from smartwatches, smart T-shirts, smart shorts, patches, and other wearables and biosensors, in addition
