How digital medicine is changing the treatment of chronic diseases

What we are seeing with health monitors is a new creation of doctors and ecosystems to deal with chronic diseases, says Samir Damani, MD.

Transcript

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You're going to have digital medicine, digital health specialists that really have ecosystems built around managing populations of chronic disease.

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And patients love it. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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So what I think is emerging right now is a new specialty in medicine. And this is not the first time. If you look in 1975, the Academy of Sleep Medicine

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was started in that time frame because sleep disorders started creeping up in thousands. And there was really no specialty

00:33

to deal with those individuals. You had people with sleep apnea, all these different disorders. And what happened was you formed a new society

00:41

and new fellowship. So you had all these different doctors-- you had cardiologists, you had pulmonologists, you had EMT doctors, internal medicine doctors that

00:50

go and study in sleep. And so you now are sleep doctors. Similarly, what you're going to have is a creation of a new specialty of doctors

00:56

where you have the internists that are still dealing with the acute care, but you're going to have digital medicine, digital health specialists that really have ecosystems built around managing

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populations of chronic disease. And patients love it. I mean, if you look at some of the testimonials and the outcomes, I mean, they really

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love the fact they feel like they're in control. So I do think that what you're seeing is a creation of a new specialty that I anticipate

01:20

in the next three to five years will formalize, and you'll have some formal training in this area. At least I hope that we go in that direction.