Could we ever have envisioned where our appetite for digital might take us back in June 2007, when the launch of the first Apple iPhone propelled data into the mainstream? Fast-forward two decades and the World Health Organization has set a new global benchmark for our digital health. They’ve issued a clear directive to the United Nations members — recommending hospitals, doctors, device companies, phone manufacturers, and governments link up every person’s health records digitally.
It’s a huge breakthrough: for years, society has been talking about being able to predict, protect, and manage personal health by connecting information from historical health records, fitness apps, population statistics, and even basic phone data — such as location tracking and call records. We’ve been envisioning a world where a doctor reaches out to a patient because recent heart rate readings on their Apple Watch look a little off, and imagining a time when data collected about our online behavior can predict negative mental health outcomes. We’re waiting for scientific researchers to be able to tap into multiple scan images of huge populations to better predict early signs of cancer. But archaic data protection laws, coupled with the reluctance of governments and public health systems to invest in new technologies, means a truly connected health network has remained a dream — until today.
The permissions that exist between the individual, diverse medical organizations, and tech companies need careful management. Humans will always feel the need to control who has access to their data, especially when it becomes so intimate. And the sheer scale of the task to connect all the different systems and technologies to one another is beyond the stretch of a regular imagination. Society understands the need for utilizing tech to save lives, but we don’t understand how to actually put it all together.
The magicians of the technology world
Cloud Architects are the people who can take the whole world of health — from hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and scientific researchers, to Fitbit activity data, mental health scores based on social media sentiment, and community schemes for the elderly — and plot them into one cohesive mind map. Not only are they digital architects, they are detail-led designers, industry experts, and creative problem solvers. They are the magicians of the technology world, conjuring up whole healthcare systems to manage and connect our data.
They think about which system needs to link to another, and how. They think about which design will be the most cost-effective, energy-efficient, and straightforward to execute — and how to balance all three for the best-case scenario. They design the virtual roads, paths, and bridges between different people, countries, governments, and businesses, all the time ensuring that personal data is protected. Their inside-out knowledge of the healthcare industry enables them to work out the architecture of how everything links together.
And, just like an architect designing physical structures, they manage the builders: the coders, the programmers, the web designers, the technology providers — all the different contractors that must come together to ensure a future-proofed digital structure, with the internet at the foundation.
They take on huge tasks with seemingly endless moving parts and come up with a beautifully ordered route to an agile, robust solution. They are the people creating the digital blueprints for our increasingly complex world.
If we want technology and data to realize its potential in complex areas such as healthcare, we need these expert strategists to write the maps to get us there.
Illustration: Matthew Hollister
