Technology-based interventions in health care

Abstract

There are several converging forces that create a particularly opportune time for technological solutions to enhance cost efficiency in healthcare. Health care costs are unsustainable, yet many patients do not have adequate access to state-of-the-art treatments or to ongoing disease management. Consumerism is an increasingly powerful force in healthcare and the emphasis on personalised medicine will help to define future research and clinical treatment strategies. At the same time, the phenomenal advances in internet utilisation and mobile device applications provide possibilities that have never before existed. We have reason to be very optimistic about these opportunities, but appropriate research will be required to develop scalable and sustainable methods as well as determine expected outcomes.