conferences
Photo credit: Jan Zappner/re:publica
Cyber-medicine & humans.
7 new concerns about digital healthcare Innovations in healthcare need to be discussed as never before, footnotes and small print for user manuals of health apps need to be read carefully by all of us. Instead of simplifying or demonizing digital healthcare, we need more research and deeper debates. Conclusions and questions after this year’s conference on internet and society re:publica. Capitalism: Is there a place for equity and solidarity in (digital) healthcare? “A key challenge is to ensure that all people enjoy the benefits of digital technologies for everyone. We must make sure that innovation and technology helps to
100
OSOZ World 2020
reduce the inequities in our world, instead of becoming another reason people are left behind. Countries must be guided by evidence to establish sustainable harmonized digital systems, not seduced by every new gadget,” postulates Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-
General, World Health Organization in the foreword for the latest report “WHO Guideline: recommendations on digital interventions for health system”. The WHO calls for #HealthForAll. But equal access to healthcare in the era of digitalization is in threat. Healthcare is too complex for its problems to be solved in a simple way. Digital health is not a silver bullet – although it creates new opportunities for health services distribution, new challenges arises. Digital natives profit from brand new smart watches to monitor heart health or blood glucose, in modern clinics designed in Silicon Valley patients have access to the newest telemedicine innovations for early dis-
