The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care

Book Description:
While we now use our iPhones and blackberries to send email and surf the Web, soon we could be using them to check our vital signs. The technology already exists for us to continuously monitor our heart rhythm, blood glucose levels, and brain waves while we sleep. Miniature ultrasound imaging devices are replacing the icon of medicine—the stethoscope. DNA sequencing, Facebook, and the Watson supercomputer have already saved lives. For the first time we can “digitize” humans—capturing all the relevant data from each individual to enable precision therapy, prevent major side effects of medications, and ultimately prevent many diseases from ever occurring. The world is awash with medical innovation—and yet much of it remains unavailable because of the medical community’s profound resistance to change.In The Creative Destruction of Medicine, Eric Topol—one of the nation’s top physicians and a leading voice on the digital revolution in medicine—argues that radical innovation and a true democratization of medical care are within reach, but only if we consumers demand it. We can force medicine to undergo its biggest shakeup in history by agitating for access to our medical data and becoming early adopters of practices such as genomic sequencing. This book shows us how.