The potential of the Semantic Web for delivering or improving health care is only limited by our imagination. Here are some ideas for how this technology might be used in the future.
Analysis of the Impact of External Conditions on Health
Semantic Web technology could be used to connect geographic, environmental, and cultural information from separate databases with patient information in electronic health records. This would give health care providers a more holistic view of the patient's living environment, and identify previously unknown external factors that may affect health. These factors could also be considered when the health care provider develops therapy or a wellness plan for the patient. This technology would also provide medical researchers with a means of conducting demographic analysis to evaluate how the complex interactions between environment and culture affect the health of specific populations.
Improve Computer Aided Robotic Surgery
Semantic Web technology might be used to consolidate and give meaning to information from a variety of electronic sources and then coordinated to support robotic surgery. For example, information from a patient's electronic preoperative tests, diagnostics, and electronic health records, could be synthesized into meaningful information that is mapped to robotics logic and computerized monitoring devices so as to improve the overall safety and efficacy of the surgery.
Telemedicine Communications Translator
Semantic Web technology could be used to translate words spoken into a voice recognition device into a foreign language that is “spoken” or printed by a computer on the receiving end of a VoIP connection. This type of technology would facilitate the delivery of telemedical clinical care to patients who speak different languages or to the deaf.
eHealth Record On-Demand Consolidation
Semantic Web technology could be used to consolidate electronic health records located in a variety of databases such as doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and walk-in clinics, into a single patient file as needed. This would allow health care providers to make clinical decisions based on complete patient records. This technology could also be used to translate the consolidated health records into other languages to support the delivery of health care to patients regardless of their location and language. This consolidation and translation to other languages would also facilitate global medical research.
Interactive Health Care Management Trackers
The Semantic Web could be used to provide a customized interactive check list of actions that patients must take to manage their own health care. For example, the tracker could extract information from the patient’s electronic health care record to identify when annual examinations are required, and automatically contact the health care provider’s system to compare open appointments with open time on the patient’s electronic calendar. It could track insurance deductibles and individual payments for health care, and use historical information to estimate future health costs. An interactive health care management tracker could also track medications, automatically submit refill requests to a pharmacy, automatically request updated prescriptions from doctors, and use prescription and exam information from electronic health care records to query on-line pharmaceutical databases and extract customized information about possible drug interactions and side-effects.
References
Application of Digital Surgery in Orthopedics: THA and TKP. Retrieved 5/19/2010 from http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2005_Groups/04/orthopedics.htm
Bonsor, K. and Strickland, J. (200x). How Robotic Surgery Will Work. Retrieved 5/21/2010 from http://science.howstuffworks.com/robotic-surgery.htm
Dolbear, C. (2007). Ordonance Survey, UK Case Study: Semantic Web Technology at Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 5/20/2010 from http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases/OrdSurvey/
Federal Communications Commission. VoIP Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved 5/21/2010 from http://www.fcc.gov/voip/.
Marescaux, J. MD, et al. (2002). Transcontinental Robot-Assisted Remote Telesurgery: Feasibility and Potential Applications. Retrieved 5/21/2010 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1422462/
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