Description
Digital health is no longer just about tools—it’s about how clinicians actively shape technology to solve real clinical challenges. This session highlights practical, real-world use cases where doctors influence product design, workflows, and patient outcomes. Through clinician-led examples, participants will understand how medical expertise drives meaningful digital innovation. The focus remains on applicability, decision-making, and impact in everyday clinical practice.
Summary Listen
- Dr. Bunkyakakar's journey from a family of doctors to working with technology in healthcare started with simple PowerPoint presentations in medical college. Recognizing the value of a doctor's perspective in tech, he began creating presentations and eventually managing social media for medical institutions. This path highlighted the importance of understanding both healthcare and technology for effective implementation.
- The integration of technology in healthcare faces challenges due to the qualitative nature of healthcare, focusing on trust, faith, and individual patient experiences. Unlike tech's focus on quantities and iterative development, healthcare requires immediate, critical solutions, making quantification and segmentation difficult. Doctors need to learn decision-making processes, supply chain management, compliance, and continuous upskilling beyond medical knowledge.
- Dr. Bunkyakakar defines tech in healthcare as anything facilitating the flow of information or the delivery of care. This includes communication, education, logistics, diagnostics, and therapeutics. He argues that doctors are crucial in shaping technology by providing clinical situation awareness, ensuring tools save time, and prioritizing patient care over data entry.
- Case studies highlighted the significance of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in various fields. Doctors' involvement in e-pharmacies, video creation, and social media marketing demonstrates the need for medical expertise in tech deployment. Understanding technical aspects such as SEO and video editing can empower doctors to improve content quality and compliance.
- Challenges with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) adoption illustrated the importance of doctor involvement in user-friendly design. Success was achieved only after incorporating doctors’ feedback for app integration, patient communication, and addressing concerns about device installation. A failed ECG machine project emphasized the need for doctors to understand marketing, UI/UX, and manufacturing processes for product success.
- Experiences with Electronic Health Records (EHRs) highlighted potential pitfalls in tech design. Errors in heart rate monitoring and dosage calculations underscored the necessity of doctors’ insights in coding and user interface design. Emergency app design and blood pressure monitoring showcased the importance of considering frontline workers' needs and practical limitations.
- AI's role in healthcare requires careful consideration. While AI models can process vast amounts of clinical data, doctors must define the clinical logic to ensure patient safety. The focus should be on doctors translating clinical needs to engineers rather than doctors replacing engineers. Training in data interoperability, clinical workflows, and UI/UX principles is essential for doctors to shape technology effectively.
- Ultimately, technology in healthcare should be a medium that facilitates the connection between doctors and patients, impacting patient behavior and improving clinical decisions. The core values in development should center around patient safety and positive patient outcomes, more so than lines of code or bug fixes. Education and training are key to doctors translating clinical needs, directing engineers, and ensuring that code serves the cure.
Sample Certificate
About the Speakers
Dr. Suraj Dhirwani
Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder, Technomedix, Mumbai
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