Speaking at the recent FCC-Mayo Clinic Broadband Health Summit held in Florida, FCC www.fcc.gov Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn talked about how the future of infrastructure and the development of broadband networks will enable integrated, collaborative, and comprehensive smart health systems. As he said, “In other words, we will have “smart care”.
Our population is aging and many prefer to age in place and live independently as long as possible. By 2030, one in five people are expected to be age 65 or older which means that medical demands will increase with an aging population.
To add to the aging issue, there won’t be enough healthcare workers to meet the demand of this aging population. It is reported that by 2025, there will be 50 to 1000,000 fewer physicians than we have today to treat this population.
The Commissioner said, “Broadband can serve as a bridge between the expanding chasm of diminishing resources and increasing need. Broadband can not only serve to connect needs to resources, but by using the technology to interconnect systems, broadband can be a force multiplier to achieve positive health outcomes.”
He added, “To achieve our goals to provide the population a comprehensive smart health system, we must integrate not just medical systems with each other, but also with medical institutions, social service providers, grocery stores, family caregivers, senior centers, Fitbits, smart homes, and cars. By establishing integrated health networks, we will be able to provide good healthcare to all Americans.”
By integrating systems and producing future smart systems, consumers would have access to specific information and services. In addition, smart systems could be personalized to the specific needs of any consumer.
Networked systems would be able to take data from multiple sensors and monitors located in the home and the environment of the consumer. The systems would be able to continuously analyze the data so that patients, caregivers, or providers would automatically be alerted to potentially hazardous circumstances or issues.
Over time, these systems could assess broader consumer behavioral patterns and ultimately predict when a certain behavior will lead to poor health outcomes. Then help could be provided to prevent those outcomes by suggesting or assisting with alternate behaviors.
As the Commissioner pointed out, “The most amazing thing about these future broadband enabled smart health systems is that they could be largely passive. They will work to help consumers without the need for the consumer to do anything different or special. Finally these smart systems could change over time as the needs of the consumer change.”
He added, “The bottom line is that smart health systems enabled by robust wired and wireless broadband networks could significantly improve consumer health management and caregiving experiences and usher in the era of smart care which today is simply not possible.”