JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

The ICT sector provides a broad range of applications and services for medical use. However, the capabilities of physicians to interact optimally with ICT specialists tend to lag behind technical developments. The effectiveness and efficiency of ICT-based solutions may therefore be less than optimal. Collaborations between medical and ICT professionals are often project–based and ad hoc, and differences in perspectives may lead to miscommunication or disagreement. Given the high potential as well as the pitfalls of medicine-ICT collaborations, appropriate structures are needed to foster optimum cooperation. To some degree digital medicine and technical medicine cover these collaborations, the former being concerned with the use of technologies as tools for measurement and intervention in the service of human health, and the latter focusing on the design and development of new applications for diagnosis and therapies by using complex medical technology. Both digital and technical medicine, however, are multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary, which means that questions are formulated in discipline-specific wordings and problems perceived within conventional conceptual frameworks. In contrast, integrative collaborations aim at insights that emerge by crossing the boundaries between disciplines and that eventually evolve into concepts that are better suited to addressing problems. This is achieved via longstanding and structural collaborations between researchers from various disciplines. Conceivably, integrative collaborations between medical professionals and ICT experts may materialize as a new specialty that is both overarching as well as an integral part of the existing disciplines: ICT medicine. ICT doctors cooperate with a wide range of stakeholders. They initiate, promote and integrate collaborations and are trained to facilitate the development of ICT-based diagnostic, prognostic, therapeutic and monitoring tools and processes, and to identify problems in real-life situations that might benefit from novel ICT solutions. ICT physicians play a key role in the entire trajectory from idea to widespread implementation of ICT-based solutions, resulting in actual innovations. On a continuous basis they scientifically evaluate in real-life settings the acceptance, utilization and (cost) effectiveness of ICT-based solutions. The specialty of ICT medicine forms a structural basis for the continued activities necessary for integrative collaborations, and it may also secure the autonomy of ICT physicians. In contrast to previous technical revolutions in medicine, like the discovery of X-rays, the current ICT-based revolution pervades medicine as a whole, radically changing virtually every aspect of it. This drastic transformation requires a specialty that comprehensively and systemically integrates all ICT-based developments and practices throughout all fields of medicine. ICT medicine may shape the future of medicine by realising ICT-based practices that are both effective and cost-effective, and appreciated by both professionals and patients.