EDITOR’S CORNER
Alfred A. Bove, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, CardioSource WorldNews
Driving Innovation
T
he pace of development for new stuff that
affects our lives is accelerating rapidly. Much
of the innovation springs from improved
electronics that are becoming miniaturized to the
point where that, when they are in use, we aren’t
even aware of the presence of an electronic device
watching over us.
Case in point: exercise and fitness trackers can
be found everywhere. Elevator conversations now
focus on how many steps, who had relaxed sleep,
and number of calories burned. Today’s gizmos record heart rate, acceleration, distance traveled, even
muscle motion to decide if fitness is being achieved.
Alternatively, microsensors placed in medication
capsules to record when a patient takes a medication, and sports equipment like footballs are being
instrumented with sensors to measure speed, spin,
arc, and other measures that make a quarterback
more efficient.
But while the gadgets are getting smaller and
more capable of gathering our personal information
and sending it to our smart phones, the needs of the
next generation of monitoring and communication
involve the use of artificial intelligence and other
intelligent systems to aid in daily decision making
about functions designed to improve quality of life.
The next generation of innovation will incorporate
not only the newest miniature sensors, but will connect them to intelligent systems that will aid in making day-to-day decisions on a variety of questions.
One of my favorite intelligent systems has
always been Watson®, the IBM system that can win
at world-class chess, diagnose illness, and develop
care plans for patients. Watson is being used for
medical education and its intelligent systems can be
applied to almost any problem where decision-making is based on input from surrounding community
databases. Using these concepts, an intelligent medical record system would identify your next patient,
open their record, display the prior progress note,
list medications, suggest recent studies, look at the
appropriate performance record, and inform you if
a key