Capable Implantable Medical Devices
The Role of Smart Technology in shaping Healthcare and everything for which we should be watching out!
This article was originally published by Technology Hits on Medium
Three decades into the evolution of the internet and the expansion of digital information technology, we face a novel rise of technologies that are not only precise but also “smart.” It is now the turn of deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to headline the next global innovation phase.
Smart technologies are altering the way we live, communicate, and work. Most are for good causes, but a few are abusive to individual autonomy by design. By considering the good and bad of smart technology, we must understand the meaning of the words.
Pinning down a meaning for something as eclectic as smart technology can be quite a strenuous task; provided that the field of intelligent technology is developing relentlessly, making other innovations outdated almost as quickly as they emerge.
Having or showing a quick-witted intelligence is the basic definition of the word “SMART.” It cites self-monitoring, computation, and reporting technology.
Smart technology utilizes artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analysis to furnish a mental understanding of things that were in the past deemed inanimate. Although the future of smart technology is limitless, nevertheless, the most commonly recognized intelligent systems include: Internet of things (IoT), intelligent connected devices, and most recently emerging ones called the Internet of Bodies (IoB). Besides a few fundamental functionality differences, almost all of the mentioned technologies comprise a network of devices that employs various sensors, hardware, software, web connectivity, data analytics, and applications to perform specific tasks. Concerning IoT, the solution brings static physical objects to life through physical performance using the latter utilities.
Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash
It uses the spectrum of functionalities that extend from limited automation to fully automated systems. Smart technology may or may not require internet connectivity. It is convenient as it requires minimal effort to carry out tasks, such as using your voice to activate itself.
Smart technology ensures sustainability, Security, and efficiency. It Saves Money and Time, automates repetitive chores, and eliminates lost or wasted time.
Healthcare and Medicine; the new Frontier for Smart Technology
Healthcare and medicine, just like any other industry, has benefited from technology. Significant technological refinements have enabled us to prolong our lives. Still, a bunch of common illnesses and injuries affecting the middle-aged and elderly are here to stay.
Implantable medical devices among looming smart technologies are transforming how healthcare is being delivered. These devices’ abilities have expanded in recent decades, stemming from better health for patients, and increased revenues for device manufacturers. Even though their benefit to patients and physicians has been transparent and single intended, their profit to the industry leaders has been multifaceted, covert, and exponential. For instance, smart technologies like implanted devices in the lower back have assisted patients with sciatica and other persistent back pain causes. But concomitantly, the data is overzealously used for alternate purposes. Indispensable to bear in mind is that the collected information is not just for medical tenacities. Smart technologies’ wireless communication capabilities are a significant source of data abuse, mainly while patients are in open environments. It facilitates access to transmitted data by eavesdroppers or misuse of data by the providers of the technology. They simply have full access to that information, such as vital signs, diagnosed conditions, therapies, and various personal data.
Smart Medical Devices are Designed to be Independent
Besides being independently self-learner through an in-depth learning process, smart devices have to be self-powered to be sustainable in delicate environments such as the human body. Traditionally one of the significant challenges of implantable devices has been how to sustain their power supply. Today a variety of technological advances have been able to harness energy from its host environment. For Example, The independent system approach can use body temperature and body motion to generate electrical energy to power the implanted device. On the other hand, the power approaches borrowing an external unit such as optical charging, ultrasonic transducer, and inductive coupling allow transferring the power giving the ability to power the smart devices in different body locations.
The associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, Ada Poon, has added a new dimension to smart technology independence, developed two types of self-propelled devices. One drives electrical current right through the fluid to create a turning force that pushes the machine forward. Ada’s version of the smart implantable device can move at just over half-a-centimeter per second. A different version switches current back-and-forth in a wire loop to produce a swishing motion comparable to the movement a kayaker makes to paddle upstream.
Some scholars are contemplating rendering robots, and smart Devices express empathy. They are hoping that way they fill the human touch gap of the technology.
The idea of implantable device autonomy is not just important from the sustainability and functionality perspective. It is also significant because it allows the device with the limitless capacity to learn, collect data, and transmit without discrimination. For Example, while a smart cardiac pacemaker, conveys information about the electrical activity of the heart, concomitantly providing access to patients’ locations and activities. In other words, many different pieces of data can be automatically collected within the process of executing the original mission without patient consent. Even if it is consented by the patient, it would not be through full transparency, mainly how the data will be used.
Corporations will always direct their Strategies Toward Profits
The downturn of using smart technologies is that millennials have become content with expanding the Internet of Things. Because our tools and equipment know more about us than we identify ourselves. Our smartphones are disseminating our every footstep. The corporation’s leading objective has always been to overwork its cut value and maximizes its revenue stream. But, entities and the big firms have commenced balancing the essential fiscal purpose with additional rudiments such as societal, political, and environmental ambitions to sponsor the calming down stakeholders and ease further profiteering. Smart technologies using deep learning schemes provide corporations with the ability to diversify their revenue source. For Example, using the excuse of containing COVID-19 pandemics, corporations have been able to use smart facial recognition and mapping technology to profile and collect various public personal traits and whereabouts.
Today the large corporations have access to silos of big data. In the preponderance of cases, they should not have access to them. They are also gaining access to real-time data flow through smart implantable devices, which can be analyzed through real-time data analytics and less through prediction analytics. The latter of the two, in contrast, can be more disadvantageous; since it often becomes more outdated. The real-time data analytics (RTDA) offers, The Black Box Artificial Intelligence and Surveillance programs while providing real-time data for use. RTDA, today, is becoming more of a matter of necessity rather than an option. Utilizing the aforementioned valuable tool, the public information, more so the health information piracy and abuse seems to become less dependent on the pool of centralized data and more about fishing for dynamic data floating on the internet and servers. That is an excellent strategy by the 3rd party entities to bypass security obstacles associated with database protection initiatives.
The Future Perils of Smart Implantable Devices may outweigh the Benefits
Logically, we can all concur- utilizing the AI as a distinct form of instrument in medicine. But there must be a point of concession that correspondingly secures safety procedures throughout the ripening period. Hence, for that reason, the utility of Artificial Intelligence beyond its applicable requirements must be diligently substantiated. For that reason Decentralizing the Database is essential in Healthcare. Because it protects patient information from the risk of abuse, it reduces medicolegal perils and, most of all returns the value of the data to its sovereign owners.
The industries are currently trading public data, with a 100% profit margin. That is the kind of data often covertly collected from individuals and worth trillions of dollars. Just imagine redistributing the sum of the latter between the owners of the data!