With healthcare under extreme commercial and political pressure, the doctor-patient relationship is at a low point — and risks further deterioration. But digital technologies promise to revolutionize the daily delivery of care. Renowned digital medicine pioneer Dr. Eric Topol and Azeem Azhar discuss what this could mean for medical professionals, patients, and national healthcare systems.

In this podcast, Eric and Azeem also discuss:

• Issues of access: equality of access and coping with differential patient capability when participating in digital therapeutics.
• The impact of GDPR on the need for ‘explainable AI’ in medicine.
• Algorithmic surveillance and whether the traditional management culture of ‘patching’ bugs translates to digital therapeutics and pharmaceuticals.
• Data security and the possibility of a data ‘bill of rights’ for patients and consumers of medical tech.

Further reading:

• “The Topol Review” (February 2019)
• “Mobile health devices diagnose hidden heart condition in at-risk populations” (July 10, 2018)
• “A call for deep-learning healthcare” in Nature Medicine Vol. 25 (Jan. 7, 2019)
• “NVIDIA, Scripps Research Translational Institute Partner on AI for Genomics, Digital Health Sensors” (Oct. 23, 2018)

Dr. Eric Topol @EricTopol