Unit 10: Lesson 1: Medical Technology

Lesson 1: Medical Technology

Lesson 1: Medical Technology

How is technology improving your health?

This may be a question that you haven't considered before. Technology is all around us, and we use it for entertainment, information, and accomplishing daily tasks. It can also help us improve our health and well-being.

Medical technology can be considered the equipment, processes, and procedures that the health sciences employ when researching, diagnosing, and treating aspects of our health and well-being. Some of the advances we've seen in medical technology include the ability to transplant organs and replace joints, the development of equipment like the CT scanner, and the development of new medications and vaccines. As the examples show, technology influences many different areas of the health sciences. Increasingly, it is also impacting how health scientists communicate with each other and patients.

Technology greatly impacts informatics, which 'deals with the resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and biomedicine.' It not only influences health scientists professionally, but it can also affect people's health and well-being. Do any of these apply to you? Have you ever:

• Have you looked up information about a symptom, disease, or illness on the internet?
• We entered data into a program that tracks some aspect of your health and wellness, such as a nutrition program or fitness software.
• Have you downloaded a health or fitness app to a smartphone?
• Have you E-mailed your doctor or another healthcare provider?
• Have you called a 24-hour medical advice hotline to ask for more information regarding your symptoms?
• Have you made an appointment with a doctor, dentist, or other health science professional online?

These are just a few of how technology has impacted health and wellness at a basic level. Healthcare professionals have also experienced changes in informatics due to advancing technology. In this unit, we will learn more about some of the changes in health informatics, including e-prescribing, and the benefits and drawbacks of electronic health records. In addition, we'll consider the challenges of intercultural communication and how this can affect informatics, written information, and oral communication between healthcare professionals and patients.