Podcast Series: TED Health

Episode by Daniel Kraft, 27th July 2021

Rating: Entertaining 4/5 | Informative 3/5 | Inspiring 5/5

Ted Health is a podcast series presenting Ted talks about health. For those not familiar with Ted talks, check out their website: www.ted.com/talks. 

This episode presents how the pandemic gave the shock that health systems needed to boost uptake of health technologies. The presenter, Dr Daniel Kraft, is a physician-scientist who attempts to “wow” us with a long list of cool tech that promise to change the way we track our health, conduct clinical trials, make diagnoses, and monitor patient outcomes.

These promising technologies appear to “build back better” health care systems following the COVID-19 pandemic, but products such as “invisibles” (as opposed to “wearables”) offer even greater possibilities. AI-enabled cameras, voice as a biomarker for mental health challenges, and big data are some of the technologies proposed to facilitate earlier diagnoses, especially for diseases that are harder to detect. 

Dr Kraft’s optimism is exciting to listen to and if the talks were longer, more considerations to the wider implications of these technologies could have been explored. For example, if advances in treatments lag, will we be doomed to know our fates before such treatments are discovered? Will our generation experience the longest gaps between diagnosis and treatment? What does this mean for insurance coverage? What does a shift in responsibility from healthcare professionals, to technology and patients themselves, mean for the profession? 

For prevention, will more information have us engaging in healthier behaviours? How will these tools change the way we live, and will it help us live longer? While we wait for these questions to be addressed, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those health-tracker tattoos from the podcast; Fitbits were so 2009.