Deeper dive into digital snake oil: Q&A with Dr. Madara

In his address to the AMA’s House of Delegates at the 2016 Annual Meeting last weekend, AMA CEO and Executive Vice President James L. Madara, MD, used the term “digital snake oil” to begin a critical conversation about emerging technologies in medicine. Following his remarks, he sat down with AMA Wire® for a follow-up conversation on what it means to separate the snake oil products from the products that improve patient care. The premise of Dr. Madara’s remarks was that innovations in medicine must be validated, evidence-based, actionable and connected. For new technologies to reach their potential, they must exhibit these primary features in order to bring patients and physicians closer together for the common purpose of improving health outcomes.   Since the speech, reporters, physicians and people from across the field of health IT have had questions for Dr. Madara. Here’s what he had to say on the AMA’s role in the ever-changing landscape of health care in the digital age. AMA Wire: What has been the response to your remarks and your use of the term “digital snake oil”? Dr. Madara: The early response has fallen into two general camps, which is exciting because it has initiated a healthy and much-needed discussion about this issue. The first camp is those who are generally comfortable with the pace of development of new technologies, the tsunami of digital tools and apps that I spoke of, and who perhaps aren’t concerned or don’t know enough ab...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news