We Are All Patients.
We can also help those who are changing healthcare today for a better tomorrow.
When Dr. Mike Yunes, Radiation Oncologist at Baystate, took the microphone at Tap Into TechSpring on February 12, one thing became clear as he told his story, “Healthcare is woefully behind in technology." Unfortunately, he was speaking from experience. Dr. Yunes had been working for Baystate five years when his daughter, Samantha, was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Since then, he and his wife have acquired the “best” technology that currently exists for parents to monitor their child’s insulin levels. As he explained however, “the lag time that exists with this current technology can be the difference between her being able to get out of bed or going into a coma." Most of the time, he and his wife are guessing how much insulin she needs, as the technology is 30 minutes behind reading her actual blood sugar and can vary with a 40 point spread.
The challenges he highlighted included the need to improve upon devices to utilize real-time data, as well as the communication between technologies and mobile devices. Dr. Yunes believes these are challenges that can easily be met by the people who were surrounding him that night.
Engage in Innovation: Please share your comments below about how our innovation community could work together to solve some of the real challenges brought to light by Dr. Yunes.
Diabetes also brought to light the lack of ‘real time’ technology that exists in healthcare for Dr. Luis Daniel Muñoz. Luis pursued medical education as a means to better understand health needs, and to find better ways to reduce disease related suffering, which he experienced in his own family. He has been on a mission to change healthcare and recently made the personal decision to postpone pursuing his clinical residency in order to create EDENIS. Today, Dr. Muñoz explains, “EDENIS is a physician led and mission driven health technology company focused on bridging point of care technologies to sophisticated data systems for the provision of quality healthcare to vastly underserved populations." His pursuit to develop innovative technologies stems from a personal desire to reduce the health disparities that exist in our society today. Now he is proud to say he is working on offering his, “first innovative solution, a novel wound technology.”
He is now looking for help from the healthcare professionals that reside in our community. Engage in Innovation: Share your wound care expertise by taking this survey.