Surgeon assessment
The da Vinci robort is a devise that scales down a surgeons hand movement in order to allow him to perform operations using tiny incisions. This innovation allows for less tissue damage and a much quicker recovery period for patients. There are over 200,000 being used for surgical procedures today.
The newest innovation to the da Vinci Robot is the MScore which assesses the robot to more reliably predict whether new surgeons are ready to operate on patients. MScore compares the skills of novice surgeon to that of an experiences surgeon. This is a great tool for surgeon’s own assessment and continuing growth and skill.
Breakthroughs in innovation often rely on breakthroughs in measurement
Boy, do I like that sentence!
Here is a very interesting article from The Atlantic regarding how businesses are creating experiment, measurement and decision-making innovations based off of the deluge of data (user/customer, product, site, popularity, sentiment, etc.)
The authors succinctly summarize why organizations should expand upon simple data-gathering and create new measurements, to draw useful conclusions: "the new R&D".
"While passive data gathering can be useful, measurement is far more valuable when coupled with conscious, active experimentation and sharing of insights. Likewise, the value of undertaking the experiments themselves is proportionately greater if the organization can capitalize on those experiments in more locations and at greater scale. In combination, these practices constitute a new kind of "R&D" that draws on the strengths of digitization to speed innovation."
Learning how to actually use all of this data effectively is going to be one of the more valuable lessons of our generation.
Medical test results on your mobile phone
A new phone app allows physicians and patients to view medical imagines immediately and discuss the treatment plans. The app Call MIM turns phones and tablets such as the iPad into medical diagnostic tools. Amongst the many benefits of the app is allowing physicians at other hospitals to view images for immediate feedback and quick decisions.
This app represents the growing aspect of technology in association with medicine. With proper guidelines and regulations, the app can expand its capabilities to more advanced medical diagnosis such as determining whether a patient is having a heart attack through EKG technology in the phone. The potential for mobile phones is endless as technology advances.
This app is not only for physicians. Patients can access this app and make many uses for it. Patients can view their results as well as send it to their desired physicians for second opinions for $1. Patients can now be involved in their treatments through easy access to their own medical history without waiting on hold for a physician to inform them of their health.
The app is a great start to an improved medical system. Patients are more engaged in their own health because of the access they have and physicians are able to easily pull up patient data and have it readily available at all times.
On Siri
We're one step closer...
Apple has unleashed Siri on the world, and I think it is ready for her.
I like this article, and linked it here, because it touches on what makes Siri possible: unbelievable amounts of data. Here at the RA offices, I helped to start a special interest group in Natural Language Processing, and at our inaugural meeting we discussed Siri quite a bit. She seems to be the logical next step down the path to where NLP and situational awareness can take us. Location data makes Siri's searches and solutions "smart" and relevant. But NLP is what makes her edge closer and closer to "human".
The fact that Siri can take a comment, clause or question and parse it is incredible, and is all thanks to NLP. You don't have to say "What is the weather going to be like today?" Instead, asking "Do I need an umbrella this afternoon?" will do the trick, because of the complex algorithms created through the sheer amount of data regarding human language. Research on that data in topics like semantics, sentence structure, polysemes, syntax and linguistic patterns and relationships has been going on for decades, and Siri is a very nice tangible result of it: think of Siri as the sort of "daughter of Watson".
We are all inundated with data deluges, and having a way to sort and extract meaning from them is exactly why Siri was made.
Using Technology to Detect Pain
Very interesting article about what our technology has the ability to do and what will come of these advances in the future.
Studies are being done to use software to detect pain in patients. Pain is one of the key elements of patient assessment. Nurses normally use the pain scale 0-10 and the five faces in order to assess pain.
Standford University revealed promising work done by their research team which uses software to generate brain scans enabling them to detect when people are in pain.
Pain is often times difficult to assess in certain patients especially those with cognitive limitations or patients who are not verbal. Physicians and nurses are hopeful that technology and software can eventually be used for pain detection in all patients so a proper and accurate treatment can be prescribed.
Doctors and Social Media
A new study shows doctors are making greater use of social media, approximately 65% of physicians use some form of 
social media for professional purposes. Social media is not only limited to social networking sites such as Facebook, but also professional and patient networking cites for communication and sites specific to medicine such as blogs and even Youtube.
The study showed two types of social media uses amongst physicians. One is physician-physician communication opportunities and one is for physician-patient communication tools.
There are still pros and cons to this aspect of healthcare, however those physician who used social media properly, have showed to have a positive impact on patients.
The technology era is here to stay and society has to advance with it. Physicians can use social media to promote health amongst a large spectrum of other opportunities. With the proper and effective use of social media, there may be a great improvement in our healthcare.
The Idea Factory
I really enjoyed reading through these descriptions of the innovative work taking place at MIT's Media Lab, particularly the Medicine Group (duh). You can read more about the Media Lab and their collaborations on their website, but beware: you can also easily lose track of time and end up spending hours there!
I would absolutely LOVE to spend a week with them, watching how they brainstorm and interact. Just a few of the things I'd geek out over: their work with kids, medicine, storytelling, social networks, speech/linguistics, and design.
So cool!
Collaborative Learning
This fascinating and entertaining article written by Duke Professor Cathy Davidson touches on a variety of things we're focused on here in our work: the intersection of intelligence and technology; new education, assessment and grading methodologies; unlearning and relearning; and multi-disciplinary approaches to education (and, frankly, to life).
I especially like this:
"Research indicates that, at every age level, people take their writing more seriously when it will be evaluated by peers than when it is to be judged by teachers. Online blogs directed at peers exhibit fewer typographical and factual errors, less plagiarism, and generally better, more elegant and persuasive prose than classroom assignments by the same writers. Longitudinal studies of student writers conducted by Stanford University's Andrea Lunsford, a professor of English, assessed student writing at Stanford year after year. Lunsford surprised everyone with her findings that students were becoming more literate, rhetorically dexterous, and fluent—not less, as many feared. The Internet, she discovered, had allowed them to develop their writing."
I personally think blogging has vastly improved my own writing in a variety of ways, not the least of which is that writing for an anonymous public audience forces your thoughts (and facts) to be clear and concise. The internet also tends to eventually "out" lying, cheating or plagiarizing someone else's work or words.
I've already read this article twice and plan to read it again - there is clearly a lot to be gleaned from Prof. Davidson's experiences and conclusions.
Putting Six Degrees of Separation to the Facebook Test
It is a little difficult to believe the Six Degree of Separation idea. Can it really be possible that you are only six people removed from anyone in the world? Maybe not anyone in the world, but social media does help support idea. The article Putting Six Degrees of Separation to the Facebook Test talks about how one of today’s most popular social media sites itself is running an experiment to test the idea to see how closely people really are connected to each other. The idea first presented by Fringyes Karinthy in 1929, is true today more than ever because of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Experiments continue to be done on the idea of six degree of separation in social media, however while social media is extremely popular today and has great potential, there are still limitation. Even with 5.8 million members on Facebook, it is still hard to believe that every person in the world is only six steps away from any other person on earth. With all the experiments going on regarding these two topics, we will hopefully soon find out if this is in fact true.
Microchip Based on the Human Brain
Living in the society we live in, every day brings new technological advances that people never dreamed of. From the creation of the very first television or cell phone, no one could imagine the production of flat screen TVs, iphones, or an android like systems which had capabilities exceeding any expectation. However, while new technological advances are a part of our everyday life, the ability for a computer or microchip to even up to a human brain was still never possible despite our advances…until now that is…
The IBM unveiled a microchip that is based on the human brain. They created what is called the Cognitive Computing microchip which is inspired by the human brain. Testing the product showed it has great capabilities without the need of specialized programs.
This invention of a human like microchip might just be the start to more and more technological advances far beyond our wildest hopes.