Tehran to host 2nd national youth innovation health technology festival
Tehran to host 2nd national ‘youth, innovation, health technology festival’
TEHRAN –The second national youth, innovation, and health technology festival, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) in the health sector, is scheduled to be held from October 14 to 16 in Tehran.
Hosted by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, the festival will be centered around ‘AI and machine learning in health’, ‘digital health and telemedicine’, ‘emerging technologies in rehabilitation’, ‘biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and pharmaceuticals’, ‘law and ethics in digital health’, ‘medical devices’, ‘nutrition and the food industry’, ‘psychology and psychotherapy’, and ‘environmental health’, ISNA reported.
The event provides a great platform for students from schools and universities, innovators, technologists, and experts in health sectors, as well as researchers to showcase their innovative ideas. It will also contribute to networking between owners of the innovative ideas, experts, and specialized organizations, paving the way for supporting and implementing these ideas.
The participants can also focus on ways to make health services more intelligent, enhance the quality of healthcare, develop digital tools, and develop innovative ideas to address challenges faced by the healthcare system.
Opportunities, challenges of digital health in Iran
Modern communication technologies have fundamentally changed people’s lifestyles, social interactions, and access to information, with the health sector going through digital transformation, being no exception.
The emergence of tools such as health applications, telemedicine, electronic health records, and online health platforms has made digital health an important part of the health system. Digital health provides advantages, but it also brings challenges.
Digital health refers to the use of information and communication technologies to promote health, improve access to health services, and enhance the quality of health care. Bridging the distance between the patient and the service provider, digital health makes it easier for different groups in society to receive health services.
It plays a pivotal role in raising public awareness, preventing diseases, and improving health-oriented behaviours.
Despite these benefits, digital health faces some challenges. The most important one is the digital gap, which refers to inequality in accessing and using communication technologies. The gap can be caused by different reasons such as income, place of residence, age, and literacy level.
Researchers at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabaei University have studied digital health in the country to identify its strengths, shortages, opportunities, and threats, ISNA reported.
The research findings show that digital health in Iran has significant strengths, including national healthcare platforms, the growing use of artificial intelligence tools in healthcare services, and online healthcare services.
Meanwhile, a lack of a comprehensive legal framework for health data protection, integration among digital platforms, digital literacy, and communication infrastructure, as well as structural resistance to technological change, are among the main weaknesses, which highlights that digital health needs both new technologies and reforms in structures and laws.
To realize the healthcare system transformation goal, the health ministry has developed eight projects with a focus on smart e-health using artificial intelligence.
The projects include improving health literacy and self-care, designing a smart referral system, launching a national health observatory, changing health data into operational knowledge, managing the healthcare supply chain of subsidized medicines using AI, establishing a diagnosis-related groups (DRG) payment system, designing a productive smart hospital, and integrating online insurance processes.
source: tehrantimes.com