The Globalization of Technology

The other day I was curiously reflecting on how much technology has grown over the past few decades.  I still remember dial-up, and how awesome T9 predictive texting was, and even things like laptops with touch screens first coming out.  Technology has played a huge role in our social and personal lives through developments like Facebook and Instagram.  Technology has played an even bigger role in health and health care systems.  Even now, some hospitals and clinics are still converting from paper to the magical wonder that is technology.  Because this is a global health class though I had to wonder, how much of that technology reaches those in the developing world?

During my medical brigade to poor regions of Ecuador with Timmy Global Health a couple years ago, we had just recently implemented what we called “Timmy Care,” which was a computer software system invented specifically for tracking Timmy patients’ medical records.  In the past, patients would see a Timmy physician, nothing would be recorded, and the physician would prescribe a med and give counseling, etc.  The issue was that when the next brigade crew would come in three months later, they wouldn’t know what the patient had been seen for previously and what the physician prior had already taught.  Timmy Care could be compared to the EMR, or Electronic Medical Records, that was implemented in the United States’ health care system several years ago, but with Timmy Care being on a much smaller scale.  A patient’s allergies, medication, and other personal history could be recorded and different physicians could type notes for others to see.

I read an interesting article from Stanford that described both globalization’s effect on technology and technology’s effect on globalization.  Some positives that it describes are positive cultural awareness and acceptance and easier, faster communication.  Some negatives could be seen as countries losing their cultural traditions.  We know the positives that technology has brought to the States.  I personally think EMRs are the greatest thing since sliced bread.  However, they come with a lot of negatives, such as health professionals having less eye contact and personal interactions with patients.  Do the positives outweigh the benefits?  If yes, would these positives outweigh the benefits if they were or could be employed in developing countries?

This article/website was written by computer science students in an ethics course, so it is a unique perspective for me.  Here is the link if you would like to explore: http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/developing-economies/