What's contributing to the
explosion of surgical advancements?
Incredible amounts of information about new technologies and clini-
cal developments are communicated in near real time, which gives us
the ability to keep our fingers on the pulse of advances that are occur-
ring around the world. We're transitioning from the physical world to
the digital world. As technology becomes increasingly digital, an
exponential growth curve kicks in and change is accelerated.
How will patient care be different in the coming years?
Healthcare providers will work to stay ahead of injuries and diseases
instead of treating them once they occur. We might soon be able to
introduce nanobyte sensors into our bodies to fix what's wrong.
Electronic tattoos will perform 24-hour physiological analyses, so
there will be a constant data stream coming from patients that health-
care providers can tap into. That will dramatically shift the way
patients are monitored in the OR. We're right on the edge of having
these capabilities.
How much will data influence patient care?
Significantly. Self-diagnostic technology is developing and computer
companies are looking at the human genome as just another coding
language to develop algorithms that determine how to best treat
patients or the best surgery to perform. Surgeons will be more like the
conductor of an orchestra instead of the sole decision-maker in the
OR. Their role will ultimately be to handle exceptions to normal surgi-
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t's Time to Get Excited About What's Next
I
Thomas Frey
Futurist and revolutionary thinker about tomorrow's possibilities
