Data Driven Predictive Medical Devices: An Interview

In 1987, James Gleick wrote the book Chaos which was a layman’s description of different instances where chaotic behavior was displayed in systems. In one of the last chapters titled Inner Rhythms, he described the then latest research regarding physiological system characteristics and the seemingly oxymoronic idea that variable response of the system indicated health versus illness, specifically with regard to heart rate variability, and that these systems exhibited characteristics of nonlinear dynamics in which physiologists ‘began to see chaos as health.’ That book, which I read in 1988, and in particular that chapter re-ignited my desire to become a biomedical engineer and I subsequently left the active Air Force working in space systems to start a new career in clinical engineering. While my second career was not enmeshed in research such as that discussed in the book, I still remained interested in how the analysis of data measured by medical devices could possibly provide better indications of the underlying system ‘health and wellness’, a term we used for space satellite system status using telemetry. Fast forward 30 years and I am at the Association for the Advancement of Medical instrumentation (AAMI) conference in Austin. One of the featured keynote speakers was Dr J. Randall Moorman, a practicing cardiologist and professor of medicine, biomedical engineering and molecular physiology and biological physics at the University of Virginia, who spoke about t...
Source: Medical Connectivity Consulting - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Clinical Decision Support Interviews Source Type: blogs