Medicine 4.0 is gaining momentum

Industry 4.0 is the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It refers to machines and processes being tightly integrated with the internet, including the Internet of things and cloud computing. We all have read about Industry 4.0’s disruptive trends: Big data. Augmented reality. 3D printing. Artificial Intelligence. Human-robot collaboration and last but not least cybersecurity…

Companies that have not yet joined this digital transformation are late at best and already bankrupt at worst (and become victim of the “creative destruction” of the digital age, just like Kodak).

One field as a whole, however, has been very resistant to digital transformation for years: Healthcare.

While robotic surgery, telemedicine and a wide range of wearables have already become reality, the majority of health data is still limited to the doctor’s ecosystem — often written down on paper and saved at just one place and only accessible at this specific doctor’s office/hospital.

This is about to change very soon.

Digital Health is the catchy name for industry 4.0 eventually striking healthcare. Digital Health is an interdisciplinary paradigm shift that empowers patients, doctors, developers, engineers and scientists to be collaboratively responsible for the acquisition and interpretation of genetic, physiological and pathological data.

In Germany the “E-Health Law” has been put into action for about one year now. It’s setting the foundation for a national telemedical infrastructure that is supposed to connect all private practices and hospitals by mid 2018. It includes the introduction of an electronic doctor’s letter, a standardized electronic health record, consultation and appointments via video conference and a remotely managed treatment plan.

Finally and unbelievably late patient data is moving away from paper collected in large folders in the basement of the hospital to a smooth, flexible digital record.

With all this data collected with the help of doctors and patients via examinations, operations, (worldwide >3 billion active) smartphones, Apps, sensors (including video conference & wearables) we are able to create enormous multi-centric longitudinal cohort studies. In these studies we can use gigantic numbers of cases to accelerate the speed of innovation in medicine and develop individually targeted therapies.

IBMs Watson computing system is already supporting radiologists accessing several million radiographs, ultra sound, MR and CT images and patient histories. It offers a set of potential diagnostic findings in about 3 seconds screening 200 Million pages of data (However, only an experienced radiologist will be able to interpret all this data, put it into context and manage and execute necessary interventions and treatments).

This is an incredible support for the doctor-patient interaction. A visit at the doctor’s office will become much more personal, efficient and focused. The doctor will have much more time to treat the patient and help the patient make the right decisions about their health— without wasting time browsing large folders of paper and asking the same questions again and again instead of the right questions.

Medicine 4.0 will bring the digital transformation into healthcare to the full extent. This will require creativity, scientific expertise, ethical discourse with new laws, new jobs and education and the unwavering dedication of all stakeholders.