Going digital: how the digital world is transforming medical practice

Not all that long ago, medical records were kept in folders stuffed into filing cabinets, and drug prescriptions written on paper and presented in person at the pharmacy. Now, electronic record keeping and telemedicine are commonplace. Digital tools aid in clinical decision-making, warn of an impending illness or render a diagnosis. And in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligence may do the lion’s share of a doctor’s job, and quickly identify drug targets for a raft of now-incurable diseases.

Medicine’s plunge into the digital world has made vast changes in the culture of health care and in how medicine itself is practiced.

Many of the advances offer clear benefits. In this ebook, STAT national technology correspondent Casey Ross reports on a generative AI system, under development by Google, that could analyze an X-ray, write a report and then have a conversation about it with a radiologist. Physicians Brian J. Browne and Art Papier note that tools supporting clinical decisions “have evolved tremendously,” and “now go beyond providing alerts and can assist physicians recognize patterns and aid in differential diagnosis,” in a market that by 2025 is expected to reach $10.8 billion.

Some hospitals, like one STAT’s Amber Castillo writes about, are hiring “digital access coordinators,” to train patients in digital health tools like electronic health records, online registration forms, and home blood pressure cuffs, helping to address health care system inequities. And Jayne Williamson-Lee describes in this ebook how health tech can infuse medical records with a much fuller picture of a patient’s disability.

Yet the technology, and the “complicated care-delivery and technical systems that surround” it haven’t been easy to incorporate into doctors’ and nurses’ daily routines, as Ross writes. Medical students are not learning to understand and use digital tools the way they learn anatomy or the symptoms and treatments for diseases. And sometimes, the tools themselves are not as effective or reliable as they initially seemed — a problem addressed in an article about a study comparing the ability of an AI model to identify disease areas in chest X-rays to that of radiologists.

This e-book will take you on a guided tour of both innovations and concerns, the “messy truth” of this new digital era.