We are in the digital era of healthcare. Smart phones, smart watches – even smart glucose monitors – collect data about our health that is fed into electronic health records (EHR’s), which, as of 2017, are used by 99% of large hospitals in the US . The information from these EHR’s is increasingly sorted by algorithms, which is then analyzed through artificial intelligence (AI) , which is able to identify trends and solve problems – sometimes without direct human intervention. In some studies, artificial intelligence seems to detect breast cancer better than many doctors.

These are some of the questions I want to explore here on Digital Healthcare Trends:

• Have Electronic Healthcare Records delivered on the promise of saving time and increasing quality of care?
• What are ransomware attacks and what can be done to stop them? 
• What are the privacy implications of having what is arguably the most important thing we possess, our healthcare data, stored on databases that may or may-not be secure?
• What is open source software and does it have a future in healthcare?
• How do we incorporate new technologies into our healthcare environment and, more importantly, how do we know if they are worth the costs?

Who am I and what makes me qualified to discuss these issues? I have practiced pharmacy for 3 decades in hospital, home health, retail and DME environments and have a Masters in Health Informatics.. I’m also an unrepentant nerd. I have used Linux as my primary operating system for about 15 years now. As a director of pharmacy in a hospital setting, I built my own database to record and monitor quality indicators. I have always loved to write, I love technology, and I love being on the front line of healthcare as a pharmacist, so I decided to combine all three passions for this project.

There is another reason that I wanted to talk about the intersection of healthcare and technology. On February 1^st of 2002, I had a hematoma on my spinal cord after an anterior cervical fusion, that resulted in a spinal cord injury known as Central Cord Syndrome. I was initially paralyzed from the neck down. I regained full use of my legs, but I have limited function of my arms and hands. In many ways, experiencing our healthcare system as one undergoing a catastrophic injury is a great teacher. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that healthcare must have care as its foundation. Patients are more that data points to be analyzed. They are a mother with small children facing breast cancer. They are a ten year old girl with sickle cell disease who just wants to be a normal ten year old girl. They are a father with a spinal cord injury who will never be able to throw a baseball in the back yard with his son. All of the technology we have today is a wonderful tool that can be used to help people, but healthcare practitioners must understand that we are responsible for caring for another human being. A relationship between provider and patient based on trust, empathy, and respect will never be supplanted by technology.

Albert Einstein once said, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” This is a quote that healthcare practitioners and the designers of digital healthcare technologies must keep in mind as we move forward.