The session addressed aspects such as data security, affordability of medical devices, impact on healthcare outcomes and effectiveness of current regulations to govern future advancements in medical technology
IPC 2018 emerged as a platform for the healthcare and life sciences fraternity to deliberate on the transformations in these industries and the factors driving them. They also speculated on the impact of these changes in the future.
To cite an example, Sudhakar Mairpadi, Head-Quality and regulatory, Government Affairs- Health Systems Personal Health Home Co Division, Philips gave a talk on the growing acceptance of wearables and other mobile health technologies. It also addressed the crucial aspect of regulating these technologies.
Elaborating on the topic, he spoke on the various modalities of such devices. He also explained how to enable data collection through these advanced technologies and how to secure it. He spoke on track and trace mechanisms and its impact on social media. Highlighting the revolution brought in by personalised medicine and internal drug tracking he talked about gene editing as well as its pros and cons. He cautioned that the regulators need to gear up to handle these advancements and put in effective regulatory mechanisms.
He addressed the opportunities and challenges related to medical data collection through Internet of Things (IoT) and pondered on the strategies to deal with cyber security attacks.
Moving forward, he also spoke on medical technology standards and the regulations needed to ensure public’s safety and guarantee that the products are fit for the purpose they have been created for. In his presentation, he also opined that with continuous advancements in medical technologies, the current regulatory approach is not only unfeasible and difficult to enforce, but it also works against healthcare innovation.
He concluded that regulators’ command and control approach is increasingly inadequate to handle future medical development.
Comments are closed.