Big Data & Digital Marketing

Digital avatars won’t replace physicians: You will still be seeing doctors, but the relationship will ultimately be radically altered. Deloitte says that as many as one in six doctor visits were already virtual in 2014.

Smartphones already can be used to take blood-pressure readings or even do an electrocardiogram. Other wearable sensor tools now being developed include necklaces that can monitor your heart function and check the amount of fluid in your lungs, contact lenses that can track your glucose levels or your eye pressure, and headbands that can capture your brain waves. Smartphone sensors under development will be able to monitor your exposure to radiation, air pollution or pesticides in foods. Smartphone attachments will soon enable you to perform an array of routine lab tests via your phone. Blood electrolytes; liver, kidney and thyroid function; analysis of breath, sweat and urine. 

By having the equivalent of intensive care unit monitoring on your wrist, hospital rooms can be replaced by our bedrooms. As a result, hospitals of the future are likely to be roomless data surveillance centers for remote patient monitoring.

Before these tools enter widespread use, they must all be validated through clinical trials and shown to preserve health.

The big data project (the first genetic profile of a metropolitan transit system) is in many ways “a mirror of the people themselves who ride the subway,” said Dr. Mason, a geneticist at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

It is also a revealing glimpse into the future of public health.

By documenting the miniature wildlife, microbiologists hope to discover new ways to track disease outbreaks, detect bioterrorism attacks and combat the growing antibiotic resistance among microbes, which causes about 1.7 million hospital infections every year.