Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
medical ICT implementation will require far more resources. The enormous
demands of computing power to perform the necessary Monte Carlo simulations or
other mathematical approaches to describe biochemical systems and allow pre-
dictions and simulations of the whole human being pose unprecedented challenges
to ICT, that is, in hardware and software constructions for storage, retrieval, and
management of data, but also for communication, visualization, governance, and
policy issues.
7 Implementation in the Health Care System
The future health care system—the patient in the first line—will increasingly
benefit from these novel approaches, but our attitudes and daily routines will also
change dramatically with respect to health. Despite the rapid development of
modern information and communication technologies, an eHealth system to col-
lect patient information in a central repository has not yet been implemented in
most countries of Europe and worldwide. An eHealth system provides the huge
advantage that general practitioners and clinicians do not have to rely on a
patient's personal memory to report earlier diseases or which drugs are prescribed;
an eHealth record provides all important information about a patient instantly to a
GP or clinician which can be especially important and highly advantageous when
an emergency case occurs. The implementation of an eHealth system certainly has
to follow a strict legal and ethical framework, and it needs the consent of the
citizens in a country to accept such a system. An eHealth system also provides the
chance to allow elderly patients or patients with chronic diseases a more inde-
pendent life. Concepts for Ambient Assisted Living are rapidly emerging along
with a huge spectrum of technologies that provide independence for the patient
[
55
]. In diagnostics the devices have increasingly implemented the possibility for a
wireless connection to central data repositories where the data are processed and
linked to patient data [
24
]. More and more web services also provide platforms
where a person can collect and monitor his or her body functions such as blood
pressure, pulse, and body weight. If we expect that in the future the lifestyle and
environmental data will be an important element integrated in the 'virtual patient',
then these data become increasingly important as background information for
decisions regarding therapy and prevention [
56
].
Pilot projects to integrate molecular information in these patient records have
been started recently in some countries in Europe, respecting all the legal and
ethical implications connected to these projects. As molecular information
becomes available for a reasonable price via advanced analytical technologies, it
can be anticipated that soon it might become routine for patients to agree to
include their personal genome information in their health records. Initiatives such
as '23 and me' (
www.23andme.com
) offer a sequencing service and an analysis for
disease risk factors and predicted drug response for the customer. Since services
like this emerged, there has been an observable trend of increasing numbers of
