re: HIMSS: Should Healthcare Be More Like Airline Industry?
This sort of scenario came up during Cisco's Internet of Things shindig last month in San Jose. One participant asked what it would mean, for example, if IBM cures cancer. Cisco's futurists have described a lot of the ways healthcare could change that echo this article. On the one hand, check-up kiosks at the supermarket are just the beginning. At some point, basic health data could be continuously monitored by sensor-enabled objects in our daily environments-- a bathroom mirror, for example, according to Cisco. This information could detect illness earlier and more efficiently, enable better coverage in under-served areas and, when combined with other technologies, lead to much longer and healthier lives. It could also cut down a lot of overhead costs, once the infrastructure is in place. But then there's the dark side of the equation. Who owns all the data that's collected? What can be done with it? A corporation isn't going to invest in this sort of technology out of purely altruistic motives, after all. That said, most of the people Cisco gathered came from large, multinational corporations, and they weren't shying away from these concerns. If they're starting the conversation with an acknowledgement of the more dystopian possibilities, that's at least a little encouraging.
Michael Endler, IW Associate Editor