Along with Ragh Varier, I had the privilege of moderating a session on new technologies on patient health.  Below I’ve included a few slides and some notes; my notes may have errors of omission or transcription.

Chicago

Dr. Mehta’s lecture focused on wearable health technologies. Key points:

• It is already in use in some areas (eg. continuous glucose monitoring for diabetes, ECG sensors).
• She noted that wearable technology dates back to the 1600s with the abacus ring
• Challenges: Accuracy, Actionability/outcome improvement, Reaching at-risk populations (not just the ‘worried well’ populations), regulation, sustainability (users may abandon quickly), and ethical/privacy concerns
• Some families taking technology into their own hands, so to speak. #WeAreNotWaiting.  Example: artificial pancreas device system

Dr. Syed’s lecture focused on artificial intelligence in medical-decision making. Key points:

• AI is already in use in areas like facial recognition
• AI may be able to increase polyp detection rate in colonoscopy and improve histology reading
• Her team has been working on using AI to help distinguishing enviromental enteropathy histology from other etiologies
• Other potential uses: AI to help predict Crohn’s disease progression based on histology

Related study (not discussed in talk): Z Deng, H Shi et al. Gastroenterology 2019; 157: 1044-54. The authors collected more than 113 million images from 6970.  With a deep-learning algorithm, they found that video capsule endoscopy could have higher detection rates and improved reading time with a “CNN-based” reading system (CNN=convolutional neural network).  The mean reading time was reduced from 97 minutes with conventional reading to 6 minutes with CNN-based reading system.  The later had 99.88% sensitivity in per-patient analysis (vs. 74.57% with conventional reading).

The oral abstract presentation, by Sonja Swenson, detailed how machine learning was applied to try to improve transplantation selection/PELD scores.

• The authors of this abstract (437) used data from 6273 patients with PELD scores and added additional variables to try to identify a more accurate model.
• Link: All NASPGHAN 2019 Abstracts

Dr. Li, known by some as the ’emperor of emesis,’ presented a lecture on telemedicine. His full slides: Telemedicine NASPGHAN Updated 2019 (B Li)

Key points:

• When surveyed, patients/families prefer telemedicine over conventional medicine.  Key reason is convenience
• Lots of issues from health care provider viewpoint: reimbursement, licensing (improving), increased time
• Many examples of telemedicine/telemonitoring that are ongoing

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