Prescription Technology: Opening Physician-Patient Communication Channels

Published by Ingenium Books Publishing Inc.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6P 1Z2

All rights reserved.

www.ingeniumbooks.com

Copyright @2019 Pranathi Kondapaneni

Ingenium Books supports copyright. Copyright fuels innovation and creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and helps create vibrant culture. Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing this book or any part of it without permission. You are supporting writers and helping ensure Ingenium Books can continue to publish nonfiction books for readers like you. You are permitted to excerpt brief quotations in a review. For all other permission requests, please contact the author in writing via the contact form at www.thephysicianphoenix.com.

ISBN:

978-1-989059-10-4 (paperback/softcover)

978-1-989059-11-1 (electronic)

978-1-989059-09-8

(hardcover/hardback)

978-1-989059-12-8 (audiobook)

978-1-989059-16-6 (large print)

Disclaimer

This publication was written by a physician. Material in this book is for education purposes only and is not to be misconstrued as medical advice. The reader has no therapeutic relationship with the physician author. While the publisher and author have made every attempt to verify that the information provided in this book is correct and up to date, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for an error, inaccuracy, or omission.

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for all our fellow human beings.

—Bill Gates

Contents

Introduction

My Quest

This Book’s Road Map

Technology’s Advancement

A Thing of Beauty

Chapter 1: Mr. Scotty Spock 1.0

Before the Office Visit: Friday, 4:30 P.M.

During the Office Visit: Friday, 4:55 P.M.

After the Office Visit: Friday, 5:30 P.M.

The Communication Conundrum

The Resulting Communication Breakdown

Chapter 2: The Promise of Technology

Remote Monitoring

The Internet of Things

Portable Monitoring

Limitations of Remote Monitoring

Voice First

Voice Search

Electronic Medical Record 2.0

Chapter 3: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence

Origins of Artificial Intelligence

Definitions of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence in the Real World

Internet Artificial Intelligence

Business Artificial Intelligence

Perception Artificial Intelligence

Autonomous Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Applied to Medicine

The Medical Jarvis

Chapter 4: Mr. Scotty Spock 2.0

Before the Visit: Friday, 4:25 P.M.

During the Visit: Friday, 4:30 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.

After the Visit: Friday, 5:00 P.M.

The Technology Partners

Communication Conundrum: Resolved

Treating the Patient Instead of the Disease

Chapter 5: Story. Presence. Engagement.

The Power of Story in Medicine

Trans-Media Storytelling

Trans-media Storytelling for Healthcare

The Power of Presence in Medicine

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality in Medicine

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality in Medicine

The Power of Engagement in Medicine

Gamification

Gamification in The Medical Setting

Chapter 6: Mr. Scotty Spock 3.0

The Sweet Sleep Escape App

Redefining Mr. Scotty Spock

Sweet Sleep Escape App Versus the Office Visit

Some Technological Questions Answered

Chapter 7: Mr. Scotty Spock 4.0

The Artificial Intelligence Occupational Shift

The Direct Effect on Healthcare

The Larger Toll

The Longevity Game

Technology’s Mind Readers

Conclusion: Humanity 2.0

Appendix

Top Sixteen Resources for the Busy Healthcare Practitioner

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Endnotes

Dedication

To my parents, for their loving grace...

To Mahesh, for his practical wisdom...

To Sowmya, for her compassionate faith...

Introduction

Without warning, it creeps

into the doctor’s office.

Without remorse, it disrupts the doctor’s schedule.

Without mercy, it encourages the doctor’s frustration.

What is the stealthy troublemaker?

It’s the Electronic Medical Record Meltdown!

Many healthcare providers can attest to the pure irritation of an electronic medical record’s temper tantrum right in the middle of a busy clinic day. Why do these temper tantrums have to occur when there’s a long line of patients in the waiting room?

An electronic medical record meltdown is what happens when the medical frontline reaches its breaking point in dealing with work-hindering technology. For example, in some electronic medical record systems, the number of clicks it takes to schedule a simple follow-up visit for a patient is ridiculous. It can feel as though you’re trying to order a nuclear submarine launch. And if you want to order a referral, it’s a few more clicks through a different window. In a medical system comprised of physicians and patients already starved for time, these little technological annoyances add up quickly.

In my view, many of these technologies aren’t suited to the healthcare provider. Also, physicians are being bombarded with requests and requirements to use multiple technologies at the same time. Medicine is stressful enough without needing to remember multiple logins or user interfaces. The result is money spent on something that physicians won’t properly utilize. Why can’t technology be built to better support, rather than hurt, the physician-patient relationship?

Technology’s penetration of the healthcare sector, compared to other sectors, has been relatively slow due to appropriate concerns regarding protecting patient health and privacy. But given skyrocketing costs in the sector, incentives to use technology to make healthcare delivery more cost-effective are increasing. In her TED talk, Nadjia Yousif, technology and financial institutions specialist at The Boston Consulting Group, noted that approximately 25 percent of the technology solutions, which companies originally consider adopting, are soon cancelled or sit unused.¹ That’s a great deal of money to be left on the table in a cash-strapped healthcare system. Therefore, all stakeholders in healthcare should be concerned with implementing technology in a manner that will benefit, rather than hamper, the delivery of healthcare.

How can we implement technology more effectively? It is when we deploy technology through a human lens that we can implement it effectively for both the patient and the physician.

While many healthcare stakeholders are focused on utilizing technology to solve problems, such as optimizing medical supply chains or securing health records against fraud, my interest lies in the more human need for the physician and the patient to connect. Currently, the physician-patient bond is on life support due to ongoing communication barriers within healthcare. In this book, we will explore how technology can break down these barriers and restore the element of human connection to the physician-patient relationship.

My Quest

In the fall of 1997, after reciting the Hippocratic Oath, I was inducted into the world of medicine. This is the line that resonated with me the most:

As the years passed, my ability to give that warmth, sympathy, and understanding to the patient was severely degraded as a result of an onerous medical system that perversely valued economic incentives over patients’ health. To be fair, I didn’t know what I was getting into. At the age of sixteen, I was accepted into a combined undergraduate/medical school program. At the age of twenty-four, I had undergraduate degrees in economics and biology, along with