National Cancer Institute symposium emphasizes technology's role in health care

BETHESDA, Md. The future of the health care industry is based on how much they will integrate technology into their practices, according to a symposium called, “The Future: Consumer health Information Technology,” which was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, according to published reports.

With a focus on using behavioral research and innovative technologies to create new evidence-based health solutions, the program’s organizers asked the private-sector information technology experts about ways in which consumer technologies might change health care and its delivery, including personal health management.

Panelists agreed that the Internet has removed medicine’s paternalistic culture and empowered health care users. Between 2003 and 2005, there was a “massive spread of people online looking for health care information,” said Bradford Hesse, chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Brand at the National Cancer Institute.

“And in the same way that computing evolved from mainframes to personal computers, technology-enabled health care could migrate from hospitals and medical centers to the home,” suggested Bern Shen, chief health care strategist at Intel Digital Health.