Digital medicine – catch the next wave in
I was always the ‘tech kid’. I remember loving our first PC (a Commodore 64) and the soaring accomplishment I felt after successfully setting the VCR time after my father had failed. I was almost finished high school when we first connected to the internet, and I sat – enraptured – listening to the modem ‘dialling up’, and my sister telling me to get off so she could call on the landline telephone. Like many of you, I was the one that the family looked towards for help when the things didn’t work. I was riding high! Surfing the front wave of technology. My, how things have changed!
In the subsequent decades, I have wiped out – face-first – and am currently churning in technology’s wake. My children sometimes call me a ‘boomer’ because I only use Facebook, and while they may not know what a VCR or landline even is, they are digital natives in an internet-saturated world, and I must admit that their skills far outpace mine. I turn to them for help with my phone settings, and when ‘the thing doesn’t work’.
I also, sadly, feel behind in technology in my medicine practice. I do not (yet) use an AI-scribe and can sometimes be heard grumbling around my rural hospital about the ‘good old days’ of paper charts. The truth is this: technology’s rising tide has made our patients healthier and our lives as doctors easier and will continue to do so, and paper charts weren’t really that crash-hot to begin with.
Fortunately, my time is not yet over, and I can still catch this next wave in. Whether we adopt technology early or later, the benefits are still on offer to us and our patients.
This issue takes a narrative approach to digital general practice. It serves as a solid primer to get up to speed on the ‘state of the art’. It begins with a reflection of where we have been and the landmarks we have passed along our journey.1 It warns of the potential dangers to patients left behind and advises us on how we might minimise digital health inequity.2 It continues with practical examples on implementing change and the use of AI in education and continuing professional development (CPD).3–5 Finally, it closes with a view to the future and what the future waves might bring.6 I commend the authors for their thoughtful and comprehensive contribution, and I commend their words to you.
Let us – together – catch this next wave in.