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Visions of better healthcare for everyone versus apocalyptic predictions of dehumanised medicine. How can we prevent the dream of digitalisation for people’s good from turning into a threat or pure unrealistic futurology?  Can pervasive technology become invasive? Could AI turn against patients and health professionals? The more digital technologies accompany patients and physicians, the more opportunities for better outcomes, but also concerns, especially those related to data security. China’s social credit system raises many ethical questions, some chatbots available online are misleading, data gathered in social media can be used to influence political decisions, fake news distributed on the internet threaten human’s health and lives. The new generation of digital natives faces a tsunami of technologies. Maneesh Juneja, digital health futurist, is passionate about exponential technologies in healthcare. He suggests that we are moving from a world where it's very difficult to get data on someone's health outside of their doctor's visit to a world where organisations and governments might be able to monitor citizens’ health 24 hours a day, providing digital nudges to shift behavior and being able to book you in for therapy before you even realise you are falling sick. “Whether your concern with this future vision is privacy, security, or ethics, or all three, it's critical that we build the future with people, not for them. Trust is going to be even more important as the pace of change speeds up,” Juneja pointed out. The challenge is, how do we design these new services to be inclusive, respectful, and transparent. We are already experiencing lessons on how important it is to look forward, to build smart and suitable solutions. One hundred years after the industrial revolution, societies profit from the most significant technological progress in the history of humanity, but meantime, we have to face the side effect that threatens our existence – climate change. Similarly, technology is not neutral. Tamsin Rose, senior fellow at Friends Of Europe, said that data is the currency of the new digital ecosystem. “Like money, the more data you acquire, the more things you can do with it.  Right now, the big tech dragons are hoarding enormous treasure troves of data about each and every one of us. This is the dystopia that the insights from data aggregation don't benefit the people but are monetised to make profits,” suggested Tamsin Rose. We need a fundamental revolution of business models in the digital sphere. The added value that comes from data collected passively or actively shared. “Done right, this could empower the poorest and most excluded to have a share in the benefits of the digital transformation. Done wrong, we face being cogs in a system with no agency of control,” concluded Tamsin. Bogi Eliasen, an expert on the Future of Health at Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, said that we have to focus more on what we want to make out of the technology and less on what contemporary technology can do. “We need to remember that ethics does change over time and place and thus try to develop some ethical frames that are better at grasping the accelerating tech development,” argued Eliasen. If privacy and anonymity are impossible to guarantee, transparency will become more important as a safety and security measure for personal security.  “We need to adopt a new social contract in the digital age, we have to set data free to create new valuable understandings and services,” summarised Eliasen. Artificial intelligence, algorithms, robotics – new technologies develop quicker than we, people, do. “We still don’t know what we are dealing with, but I think that instead of competing with AI, we will have to emerge with it. Technology is already now augmenting our skills,” said Teemu Arina, co-author of the “Biohacker’s Handbook.” The bad news is that as human species, we develop slower than the technology. On the other hand, we have to keep experimenting in search of innovations that can potentially improve our world. Unfortunately, there is always the danger that radical technologies created for a good purpose will influence our lives negatively. Artur Olesch is a freelance digital health journalist. .jumbotron{ background-image: url("https://www.healthcareitnews.com//sites/hitn/files/u2556/HelsinkiJumbotron.jpg"); background-size: cover; color: white; } .jumbotron h2{ color: white; } Full coverage: HIMSS & Health 2.0 Europe 2019 Healthcare decision makers, patients, clinicians, nurses, life science professionals, innovators and many more are set to convene at the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference 2019 in Helsinki on 11-13 June.

Regional population health management networks are on the rise in some parts of Europe. They use digital platforms that increasingly try to bridge the gap between healthcare and social care.

Progress has been made towards gender equality, but it is clear that much work remains to be done, and the situation is no different in health IT. In a new survey of more than 100 women in the industry in Europe, carried out by HIMSS, owner of Healthcare IT News, more than 80% of respondents said they felt that their contribution to the industry was not recognised, and over 60% that they had encountered gender discrimination in the workplace. This was manifested through lower chances of promotion and lower salaries, as well as fewer opportunities for training.  “You have to work twice as hard to demonstrate the same as a man in your position,” one respondent said.  “Also there are places, specially [sic] when talking to investors that feel like they have to teach you things rather than listen to you. They expect the man in the room to carry the conversation and to deal with him rather than the woman.” Sunjoy Mathieu, founder of Women in Digital Health in Switzerland, told Healthcare IT News the results were worrying. “There is a need for further support within organisations, and in my opinion that can only work if women who have ‘made it’ are mentoring and supporting other women, taking this responsibility and making change sustainable, on a societal level, not only fight for themselves as individuals," Mathieu said. Mentoring programmes were also seen as important by respondents of the survey. However, only 30% said they were currently mentoring someone else, and 17% that they had a mentor. Approximately 50% expressed a willingness to be a mentor or a mentee. Unveiling the results, Angela Velkova, HIMSS EMEA director of communities and strategic relations, said answers to questions about how women tackled gender discrimination in the workplace indicated that a majority of them were now coming forward and discussing the issues with colleagues and management, not letting it be swept under the rug.  Furthermore, around 80% of women said their organisations were promoting and supporting diversity by encouraging open dialogue and having a zero-tolerance policy for disrespectful behaviour. "The percentage of women feeling discriminated at the workplace based on their gender is concerning," Velkova added. "The survey results motivate us to work more through strategic initiatives at the local level - and the HIMSS regional communities can serve as a great platform for that." Last year’s survey saw 94% of women say they felt that their work went unnoticed, and Velkova said that the 11% decrease, compared to the 2019 results, indicated that this was now starting to be addressed. But there is still a long way to go. “We clearly need to urgently move to a situation where the gender discrimination we have at the moment is a thing of the past,” said Charles Alessi, chief clinical officer of HIMSS. "It is not acceptable that such large amounts of women feel that their contributions are not valued. We have to change it," the CCO cautioned. .jumbotron{ background-image: url("https://www.healthcareitnews.com//sites/hitn/files/u2556/HelsinkiJumbotron.jpg"); background-size: cover; color: white; } .jumbotron h2{ color: white; } Full coverage: HIMSS & Health 2.0 Europe 2019 Healthcare decision makers, patients, clinicians, nurses, life science professionals, innovators and many more are set to convene at the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference 2019 in Helsinki on 11-13 June.

The future of healthcare lies outside of the hospital. Getting there requires better standards, and deeply integrated clinical decision support at all levels.

In an interactive workshop on day 2 of this year’s HIMSS & Health 2.0 Europe Conference in Helsinki, representatives of healthcare institutions, cybersecurity experts, and patient representatives discussed about possible ways to alleviate the threat.

North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust has announced it will invest more than $15m over the next three years to revolutionise its clinical systems and improve patient care. Part of the investment comes from NHS Digital, which awarded $6.3m to the hospital trust as part of the flagship global digital exemplar progamme, while the other $8.9m will be funded by the trust. North Middlesex will act as a ‘fast follower’ to the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, by helping it to establish a model which can be rolled out across the NHS more broadly. The Royal Free will share its experience of being a digitally advanced trust and work with North Middlesex to create blueprints to enable other trusts to follow in its footsteps. WHY IT MATTERS North Middlesex University Hospital serves more than 350,000 people living in the London boroughs of Enfield and Haringey and surrounding areas. The trust hopes the investment will enable it to improve staff access to clinical information in order to improve decision-making and deliver safer and more effective care. It plans to invest in technology which will enable patients to better manage their own health and interact with health professionals through video consultations. North Middlesex is also aiming to provide better data that can be used to improve quality, efficiency and patient outcomes, and improve the way clinical systems across north central London interact so that clinicians can better manage patient care. To help deliver this programme of work, the trust will work in collaboration with System C Healthcare and JAC Computer Services. WHAT'S THE CONTEXT There are 17 acute trusts being supported by NHS England to become global digital exemplars, which can deliver improvements in the quality of care through the world-class use of digital technologies and information. Each of these has one or two ‘fast followers’ which support the spread of best practice and innovation. It was recently reported that the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, a global digital exemplar, is using EMRAM as a benchmarking tool to help drive its ongoing digital transformation strategy. ON THE RECORD Maria Kane, chief executive of North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, said: "With a rising demand for our services, we need to think differently about how we deliver patient care. “This investment will help us make the best use of digital technology so that we can improve the way we work and transform our services so that they better meet the needs of our local community."

We still fail in medical data management and are not ready yet to convert data into knowledge, claimed the experts of the session “Health Anywhere, Anytime” organised this week at the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference.