The Medical Futurist Institute

The Medical Futurist Institute, the very first research institute specializing in digital health, was launched on 17 October 2017. We, the team of The Medical Futurist are incredibly happy to be able to share what we have been working on with you. The aim of the Institute is to prepare every stakeholder of healthcare for gradually adopting digital health. For successfully doing so, it provides comprehensive, original scientific field research, policy papers, and recommendations on technological innovations and their broader social impact.

http://tmfinstitute.org/
http://medicalfuturist.com/launch-medical-futurist-institute-digital-health-research-better-future/

Director

The Medical Futurist

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Mesko gives over 50 keynotes every year. Never delivering the same speech twice, he channels his passion about the top trends shaping the future of health and medicine, and fires up his audience with actionable advice on preparing for the digital revolution in healthcare. He has given talks at Yale, Stanford and Harvard Universities, the World Health Organization and Singularity University, and top pharmaceutical companies.

Consultant
 
Bertalan frequently helps governments, organizations, leading pharmaceutical and technology companies prepare and take advantage of disruptive trends in medicine. His clients range from the top 10 pharmaceutical companies to innovative startups changing healthcare.

Author
 
Bertalan is the author of the Amazon Top 100 „The Guide to the Future of
Medicine” and “My Health: Upgraded”.

Influencer
 
Dr. Mesko is a science fiction fanatic who has been upgrading his health with digital technology for over a decade. His enthusiasm for medical innovation shows through his frequent updates on social media and regular posts on the latest news and advice about realizing the future of medicine. Bertalan was featured among the top 10 healthcare voices on LinkedIn and has over a 300,000 followers across his channels.

University Lecturer
 
Dr. Mesko teaches medical students and professionals at Semmelweis University, a leading European medical school, and has given masterclasses about disruptive health technology at events such as Stanford Medicine X and Doctors 2.0 And You.

Philanthropist
 
Bertalan is the founder of Webicina.com, which helps patients and physicians find hand-picked medical news and advice they can trust, for free.

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD is the Director of The Medical Futurist Institute analyzing how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. As a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, he is also an Amazon Top 100 author. 

With 500+ presentations including courses at Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities, Singularity University's Futuremed course at NASA Ames campus and organizations including the 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies, he is one of the top voices globally on healthcare technology.

Dr. Mesko was featured by dozens of top publications, including CNN, the World Health Organization, National Geographic, Forbes, TIME magazine, BBC, and the New York Times. He publishes his analyses regularly on medicalfuturist.com.

Bertalan helps companies and governments worldwide in bringing science fiction to everyday healthcare. His enthusiasm for the future shines through every one of his motivational talks, supported by stunningly visual presentations customized to each and every event’s audience.

Below are two new narratives he delivers to top pharma companies, medical professionals and international events focusing on future trends. Please note that each topic can be personalized to a company and any industry. Bertalan also regularly gives entirely custom talks about topics ranging from the future of pharma supply chains to the impact of digitization on investment banking.

Healthcare needa a trip to Mars:
We need a healthcare system that would keep an astronaut on Mars alive. Only with that can we keep on improving people’s lives.

Science fiction in healhcare
Science fiction sneaked into our everyday life but we need to bring science fiction technologies to patients!

http://medicalfuturist.com/healthcare-speaker/

The Medical Futurist (Keynote Speaker)

Webicina.com

Curating the medical resources of social media through crowdsourcing.

Managing Director

Semmelweis University

Teaching medical students about digital health, disruptive technologies and the cultural transformation of healthcare.

http://medicalfuturist.com/let-medical-students-become-21st-century-physicians/

Private Professor

Center for Clinical Genomics and Personalized Medicine

The future of medicine will clearly be centered around personalized care and clinical genomics meaning that every individual will receive prevention tips, diagnosis and therapy based on the combination of their own genomic background and lifestyle. In clinical genomics, instead of single gene differences, only gene panels could solve unmet needs in the clinical settings by determining early diagnosis, disease progression, subtypes; or whether a patient would respond to a specific therapy before even starting it by analyzing the gene expression patterns of the least invasively obtained peripheral blood samples or tissue biopsies. These could give insights into the pathogenesis of autoimmune conditions, identify new targets for future therapies of predict response to treatments available now therefore reducing healthcare routes and costs.

Project Leader of Personalized medicine through genomics

Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

External advisor

ResearchGATE

I wrote the blog entries on ResearchGATE that had a million researcher members.

Co-author of MasterBLOG

Medgadget

Editor

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD is The Medical Futurist analyzing how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. As a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, he is also an Amazon Top 100 author.

With 500+ keynotes for governments and organizations including Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities, or Singularity University's Futuremed course at NASA Ames campus, he is one of the top voices globally on digital health technology and the future of healthcare.

Dr. Mesko was featured by dozens of top publications, including CNN, the World Health Organization, National Geographic, Forbes, TIME magazine, BBC, and the New York Times. He publishes his analyses regularly on medicalfuturist.com.

His popular website has had more than 5 million readers, and he is one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Healthcare.

He is a member of Mensa International and has been selected by the Huffington Post as one of the 30 biotech thinkers with the biggest global impact. He is a member of the "Committee on Future Research" of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

He received an MD and PhD in genomics from the University of Debrecen, Medical School and Health Science Center. 

The milestones listed on this infographic all curbed a bit on the steering wheel of digital health, adding depth and scope to healthcare. 

And, most importantly, all of them lead us towards a digital health future, where patients are empowered, and take unnecessary hurdles off the hospitals by becoming the point of care.

Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD

It's always big news when a company gets FDA device listing for an app that can detect a medical condition in a device patients already own.

Now the Turkey-based h2o therapeutics  received it for their Apple Watch-enabled freezing of gait-cuing feature. It's dubbed Foggy and was designed for Parkinson’s Disease patients as a Class II medical device.

"Foggy utilizes the Taptic Engine in an Apple Watch to provide vibrotactile stimulation when a patient is experiencing freezing of gait. Users tap a complication that initiates feedback to assist with the condition.

The feature is available through the company’s Parky app, which is accessible for Apple Watch users by prescription."

mobihealthnews.com • 2 min read

h2o Therapeutics' Apple Watch feature for Parkinson's gets FDA medical device listing

Realistic 3D printed heart and lung models that can bleed, beat and breathe like the real ones!

"Designed for organ transplant training, the lifelike models reportedly reflect the tactile qualities of a human heart and can be produced with various tissue hardness levels.

Using the models, medical professionals can plan surgeries and safely research and teach transplant procedures, without the risk of complications."

Currently, trainee surgeons practice with cadavers and animal organs, therefore having these highly realistic tools would be a huge addition to their training.

3dprintingindustry.com • 5 min read

Researchers 3D print new ultra-realistic heart and lung models that can bleed, beat, and breath - 3D Printing Industry

Medical innovations often conjure images of sterile labs, high-tech equipment, and complex procedures. But every now and then, remarkable breakthroughs come with a dash of ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ ingenuity. 

From reimagined everyday objects to solutions inspired by the natural world, these innovations prove that effective healthcare doesn’t always need to be complicated.

Let’s see some medical innovations that are as surprising as they are effective.

I collected eight of our favorites that show how a little out-of-the-box thinking is leading to big changes in healthcare.

Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD on LinkedIn • 6 min read

8 Mindblowing Examples Of Technology Innovation In Healthcare

I summarized my 10 near-term predictions about AI's future in medicine and healthcare.

10 thoughts and directions that might help decision-makers, healthcare leaders and policy makers better manage expectations about this breakthrough technology.

Is there anything you would add to this list?

A new study just proved that GPT-4, the large language model (LLM) version you can use in ChatGPT, passed the board residency examination in four of five medical specialties.

Here is how it performed against over 800 physicians:

- Better than physicians: psychiatry
- Similarly to the median physician: general surgery and internal medicine
- Worse than physicians: pediatrics and OB/GYN
Their conclusion:

"The advancement from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 marks a critical milestone in which LLMs achieved physician-level performance. These findings underscore the potential maturity of LLM technology, urging the medical community to explore its widespread applications."

Previous studies did this comparison by removing complex cases and questions with images from the exams.
But what do these results mean?

These means the LLMs are extraordinary at solving text-based problems but such models are extremely far from replacing physicians or doing their job. Not even multimodal LLMs will be able to do that. Mark my words.

https://lnkd.in/ePuPB-Qa

AI promises material changes on both sides of the stethoscope. By streamlining processes, pinpointing insights, and augmenting decision-making, AI won’t just change how care is delivered – it will reshape the very experience of both giving and receiving that care.

I have written so much about various details of this revolution in the past period, so it was time to come up with a high-level overview of what we can certainly expect from AI in medicine.

I have 10 predictions, coming from four distinct facets of the healthcare spectrum.


Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD on LinkedIn • 8 min read

10 Things You Can Definitely Expect From The Future Of Healthcare AI

An AI tool can predict how likely a patient is to experience side effects after surgery and radiotherapy.

The technology is currently being trialled in the UK, France and the Netherlands.

"The AI tool was trained to predict lymphoedema up to three years after surgery and radiotherapy using data from 6,361 breast cancer patients. Patients found to be at a higher risk of arm swelling could be offered alternative treatments or additional support during and after treatments.

The AI tool correctly predicted lymphoedema in an average of 81.6% of cases and correctly identified patients who would not develop it in an average of 72.9% of cases. The overall predictive accuracy of the model was 73.4%."

A real-life patient need, a practical source of recommendations and predictions: exactly the areas AI is amazing at and can be used for.

theguardian.com • 4 min read

Medics design AI tool to predict side-effects in breast cancer patients

The World Health Organization releases a report from time to time about how countries in Europe are doing when it comes to digital health and the digital transformation.

Do you want to see yours, check the report out.

My country, Hungary, is doing quite well in this regard and indeed, I can access my medical reports (from radiology ot lab results) in our electronic medical records system before even my physician would get a notification about that.

"This collection of country profiles – based on the 2022 Survey on Digital Health in the WHO European Region – explores the ways in which Member States are reshaping their health-care systems through the integration of digital health.

The profiles indicate critical digital health components at the national level, including digital health governance, electronic health records, patient portals, telehealth, mobile health, and big data and analytics."

How is your country doing?

Exploring the digital health landscape in WHO Europe

Another great example of how virtual reality should be used in a hospital setting: to meet a real-life patient need. In this case, reducing pain.

"Among hospitalized adult patients with moderate-severe pain related to cancer and cancer therapies, VR provided more nonpharmacologic pain relief than active control and this benefit sustained long after conclusion of the intervention."T

hey had 128 patients with cancer in the study. Some of them received 10 minutes of immersive VR distraction therapy or 10 minutes of two-dimensional guided imagery distraction therapy delivered by handheld tablet.

Patients who were randomized to VR experienced significantly greater reduction in pain immediately after intervention! 

And 10 minutes is not even a long VR session. I assume the next step is finding out whether longer sessions lead to better results.👇

https://lnkd.in/e77tKe6E 

acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Very sad news today as Daniel Kahneman, best-selling psychologist of 'Thinking, Fast and Slow,' dies at 90.

Not only I've grown up reading his books but you cannot be a futurist without actively adopting the strategies he shared.

Rest in peace!

"Daniel Kahneman, who understood that not all economic decision-making is strictly rational, has died at the age of 90. His research, which focused on the ways human psychology can warp rational thinking, was recognized with a Nobel Prize in 2002 and helped give rise to the burgeoning field known as "behavioral economics.""

npr.org • 3 min read

Best-selling psychologist of 'Thinking, Fast and Slow,' dies at 90

Without data annotators, physicians currently working on manually annotating medical images in dark rooms, there is no AI revolution.

Cherish them!

Data Annotators: The Unsung Heroes Of Artificial Intelligence Development

Over the years, I've tested over a hundred digital health devices and technologies, so I thought I would provide you with the current landscape of the wearable revolution.

So if you're looking for a device to improve your lifestyle or health management, this is the video for you!

The article summarising basic tips for prompt engineering was one of the most popular pieces I published last year. 

However, as almost a year has passed, widely used generative AI models have become significantly more advanced, with capabilities we could only dream about back then.

Thus it was time to give this useful piece of content a thorough update. So here is the 2024 iteration, hope you will (continue to) find it useful!

Prompt Engineering For Healthcare: 11 Tips To Craft Great ChatGPT Prompts

I always say that adopting digital health is primarily a technology equity issue.

There is a technology (closed loop artificial pancreas systems) that can improve the quality of life and reduce the risk of long-term health complications for patients with diabetes.

But the NHS warned that it might take 5 years for everyone eligible to be able to try it.

"The new technology is intended to help prevent people with type 1 diabetes experiencing life-threatening low or high blood glucose levels, which can lead to unconsciousness and can even be fatal.

And it also helps to improve overall blood sugar control, which means the chance of complications - like heart disease, eyesight problems and kidney disease - decreases."

The technology has been available for years with enough evidence in the background and medical systems like the NHS just started to roll this out.

bbc.com • 1 min read

Diabetes patients to be offered artificial-pancreas technology

I read and analyse articles and studies every day, and I’m happy to give you a handpicked summary of my top finds each week. 

Here are this week’s top news from digital health and AI.

#newsletter #topdigitalhealthnews #themedicalfuturist #digitalhealth #future #healthcare #medicine #technology #AI

Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD on LinkedIn • 4 min read

Healthcare AI's Roadmap to the Future – This And More News In Digital Health This Week

Smart ring maker Oura has a new lab feature called the Symptom Radar that would be able to detect early signs of physiological strain.

In no way, it would diagnose anything to predict the onset of diseases, even though in theory, that's what it would do. This distinction is important from a regulatory perspective.

This aligns well with the high-level trend that devices measuring vital signs and health parameters coupled with AI would soon be able to detect the onset of diseases.

It was shown in studies during COVID already that technologically it's possible.

Regulators will have to find a way to solve this.

theverge.com • 2 min read

Oura’s experimenting with a feature to detect early changes in your health

Generative AI in Healthcare - What You Need to Know – This And More News In Digital Health This Week

I have written a paper about the effects of multimodal large language models on healthcare, and it’s available on JMIR.

What I describe in the paper is how the future evolution of large language models like ChatGPT (LLMs) will handle multimodal inputs, including text, images, videos, sound, and documents, and how it represents a significant advancement in AI. 

While generative AI has great potential, it should complement healthcare professionals rather than replace them, emphasizing the importance of human aspects like empathy and doctor-patient relationships in healthcare.

jmir.org • 18 min read

The Impact of Multimodal Large Language Models on Health Care’s Future

AI has been quite a trending topic in medicine and healthcare for a while now, and I know that sometimes it's hard to navigate all the noise. 

So I thought I'd show you some useful resources to use if you'd like to dive into the world of healthcare AI.

Taplio

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