Florida Polytechnic University hosted its first virtual #STEMTalks event of the 2016-17 academic year on October 19 titled, “Health Tech Revolution: How Technology is Reinventing Health Care.” This #STEMTalks event featured several prominent members of the health care industry: Dr. Robert Steele, the future Director of the Health Informatics Institute at Florida Polytechnic University; Elizabeth Kerns, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Lakeland Regional Hospital; and Dr. Susan LeFrancois, Assistant Professor of Health Informatics at Florida Polytechnic University.
The participants answered questions posed by the moderator, Florida Poly’s Richard Truncale, and collected from the audience, discussing matters such as cyber security, social media and financial impact. The responses were enlightening, uncovering several facts many of us might not already know. For example, according to Dr. Robert Steele, treating chronic diseases amounts to approximately 85 percent of health care costs today. In addition, according to an article referenced by Elizabeth Kerns, the volume of health care data doubles every 24 months. Imagine how much data will be available to physicians in just a few years.
View the top five moments from this virtual #STEMTalks below.
1. Elizabeth Kerns explains why this transformation in health care is happening:
2. According to Dr. Robert Steele, the health care industry can take several steps to protect their information from cyber hackers:
3. Dr. Robert Steele shares how social media can play a role in rare diseases:
4. The use of electronic health records (EHRs) and early diagnosis due to less diagnostic tests should make us a healthier population in the long-run, according to Elizabeth Kerns:
5. Susan LeFrancois tells us what she thinks (and hopes) the future holds for health informatics:
