The report in today’s Health Imaging internet news, “Got an iPhone? Image an Ear Infection.” May not mean much to IAMERS members immediately, but spend a few moments, read the short news story and consider where diagnostic medicine is heading. 15 million visits each year to the pediatrician just for ear infections. With this app and phone attachment the parent can take a picture and transmit it to the doctor. The image will give the physician information separating ear infections that need antibiotics from those that do not.
What else will change as we drive technology or it us in the coming decade? Maybe the answer to reducing the cost of health care isn’t more of the same technology but new and different that reduces office visits, allows for remote diagnostics and limits use of incorrect or unnecessary drugs. Cost savers, all.
As we have discussed many times; the world is changing at an ever increasing pace. Some of us will waste time wondering how to get back to where we were (fill in the blank), when we were most comfortable, most successful, or most profitable. Others work off of the basis that while we cannot inhibit, or stop change, by adapting to it we will remain successful and prosper. These folks are called entrepreneurs.
If we appreciate, then learn to provide our products and services better, faster or in a more appropriate context to the changes, then we become superior to our competitors and establish ourselves a place of significance in the arising dynamic. IAMERS has been and remains a valuable forum for learning about change and benefiting from a variety of ideas from experienced and successful colleagues. This why I attend every IAMERS meeting.