Digital innovations transforming healthcare

Course Description

Obtaining, processing and applying the large amounts of knowledge and information for the resolution of complex problems within healthcare has been a prominent challenge within this field. The revolutionary advances in IT in improving health and healthcare have thus brought a wave of excitement in many fields of science.

Digital Healthcare, or e-health, as it is called, refers to the use of technology to improve well-being, health and healthcare, revolutionising healthcare as we know it. This course will enable students to gain an in depth understanding of how technology can be used to support healthcare. It will also introduce them to the methods applied to develop e-health and explain theories that enable behaviour change and facilitate implementation. On the other hand, however, key emphasis is placed on the limitations of such digital technologies in healthcare as well as on the legal, ethical, social and professional (LESP) issues raised by IT innovations. This course will thus expose students to the key trends of e-health systems, whilst equipping them with the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding to evaluate, develop and make the best use of such IT innovations. By means of the analysis of published articles, case studies and guest speaker sessions, during this course, students will be exposed to several technological solutions to healthcare needs and problems as well as to the LSEP issues arising from their use.

This is not a programming course, rather students are expected to apply the skills and synthesise from the technical knowledge acquired throughout their previous years of study in order to come together as a group to propose and develop a prototype version of a novel IT e-health tool that addresses a particular healthcare issue and challenge. This could be a mobile application, an AI medical system, or any other clinical decision support software as defined by the group.