A consulting firm dealing with long-range, leading edge technological innovations and their consequences and implications for healthcare policy and practice.
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alt="http://hfdigest.com/wp-content/gallery/pics/robomed2.jpg" RNA interference (RNAi), we noted in December 2003, offered remarkable promise. Now, for the first time in a live animal, a “simple” RNAi therapy has essentially cured mice of a disease similar to Huntington’s, and it could work against Alzheimer’s, too. If it can be successfully applied to humans, RNAi therapy will represent a revolution […]
When we first wrote about NASA�s humanoid robot �Robonaut� in September 2003, it had already developed hands dexterous enough to wield tools such as wrenches. By January 2004, it was developing sensitive skin and the ability to understand human spoken commands. Now, it has a leg� and wheels. And the wheels are getting smarter. Carnegie […]
Singapore is showing that hospitals everywhere need to stop thinking in terms of local service areas and start thinking globally. The island state is merely taking advantage of cheap travel, Internet communications, and its entrepreneurial mindset to attract patients from all over the world. And this is without even considering the border-busting capabilities of telemedicine […]
While one healthcare megatrend—toward self care—appears to be starting to bite at hospitals’ financial prospects, another is gearing up in the wings: At least one journalist and newspaper have got the message about the impending robotic revolution’s impact on jobs and therefore on society. The question is, will policymakers get the message, and will they […]
A new technology to count cancer cells in the bloodstream gives earlier warning of metastasis and enables treatment regimens to be more effectively monitored and modified to fit the individual patient�s condition. Such tailoring to suit the individual has taken a significant step foreward with the development of a genetics-based test for cancer patients� individual […]
An intelligent, sensor-studded moving floor adds a full range of locomotion to virtual reality environments, and opens up the possibility of never having to leave home to travel the globe. A handheld foreign language interpreter in use in Iraq could have a place in hospitals that lack human interpreters. A nuclear scanner may […]
Nanotechnology appears to hold the key to the Holy Grail of a genuinely lightspeed optical network that would be up to a hundred time faster than today�s fastest telecommunications networks. As if a hundred-fold increase in bandwidth were not enough, we may soon see a 10,000-fold increase in data storage capacity, by storing data in […]
Not long ago, digital cameras were exotic, expensive, produced poor pictures, and easily dismissed. Now, they are cheap, everywhere, as good as film at the high end, and many double as video cameras. Think of this example as you read in Health Futures Digest about other exotic, expensive, and currently rather limited technologies now emerging�hydrogen-powered […]
The US government has put aside its War on Castro to enable promising Cuban cancer �vaccines� to be further developed in the US. The wife of one cancer vaccine trial patient said: “We know it’s not a cure, but if we could get five years, maybe there will be a cure around then.” The point […]
The robotics industry today can be compared to the PC industry in 1977, when the first kit PCs appeared and were followed within five years by the truly useful, multi-purpose IBM PC that changed the world. We believe the world is in for another major change in about five years, when truly useful, multi-purpose robots […]
