largely contribute to a restructuring of the medical landscape, technology replacing human expertise in many cases. We are entering there straight into the field of prediction, with all the risk involved in exercise. But whatever the degree of substitution, the spread of ICT in health will represent a credible alternative in the coming years to make up for future shortages of doctors, as American politicians have already pointed out.
Finally, third highlight, better knowledge of risk factors, in particular through genome analysis, should help to specify preventive actions based on the profile of each individual.
By associating this possibility of developing new prevention services with the previous observation, a curative system based on health paths, digital health is invited to an enlarged conception of the health system. In this conception, taking charge of health would no longer be limited to the curative stage alone, but would be conceived throughout life. The line between health and well-being is also increasingly being drawn. At each stage of life, the citizen would develop an increased awareness of the maintenance of good health. You could protect yourself from the risks of illness, cultivate a certain state of well-being, and if he ever fell ill, be taken care of within integrated care networks. It would no longer be a question of a course of care or health, but of life: that is to say a “tailor-made” management of his health course throughout your life.
.Two factors challenge
In the coming revolution, two factors seem to have to be taken into account to explain the possible pace of change.
The first is the question of the interoperability of information and communication systems. Other sectors (such as air traffic control, for example) illustrate the difficulty that this dimension can represent in large systems, and the time that the search for efficient solutions can take: years, sometimes tens of years. Today, almost all of the institutional and human players in health networks have information systems, whether it be HIS (hospital information systems) or medical office management software. But the question of the interoperability of these systems and their dialogue remains open, and the time that may take to develop solutions is difficult to predict.
The second is the ethical question. The production, exchange, and even processing of data as sensitive as that relating to the most intimate of an individual, his health, pose significant ethical and deontological problems. Likewise, the question arises of a possible widening of inequalities in the care that can result from the development of ICTs and therefore of how to manage this risk in a united manner.