An extensive special report in the April 16 edition of The Economist examines the ways technology is changing approaches to health care. The package covers everything from fancy new technologies to the public health potential of mobile phones in the developing world.
It is easy to be sceptical about such online communities. A fatal illness will not be cured by Twittering about it. And for many people nothing will replace the personal relationship between a patient and his doctor. But it seems clear that patients are going online to get more information on their illness, to see what other consumers think of new medications and to get emotional support from fellow sufferers.
The Economist also discovers significant shifts in the way consumers access and respond to health information.
The most influential health blogs on the web, he finds, are those that offer people with chronic illnesses medically relevant and accurate information. One post from a trusted surgeon blogger, he says, now has a far more immediate impact on improving surgical care globally than a peer-reviewed trial published in a prestigious journal.
Articles in the special report include:
- Medicine goes digital: Speculation that, as they begins to converge with the field of engineering, biology and medicine are transitioning into industries based on information, rather than discovery
- Health and information technology: The growth and future of electronic medical records
- Digital medicine: “…health-care providers and drug companies must shift to a culture of continuous improvement of the sort that made Toyota famous”
- Personalised medicine: The promises and pitfalls of widely available, cheap personal genome sequencing
- Developing countries and health: “Developing countries are using mobile phones to leapfrog to personalised medicine”
- Micro-technology and health: How micro-technology is driving advances in surgery, diagnostics and doctor-patient interactions
