The Engines of Hippocrates (eBook)

BARRY ROBSON is Director of Medical Research and Professor of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Evidence Based Medicine at St. Matthew's University School of Medicine, and CEO of The Dirac Foundation, formed with the permission of Nobel laureate Paul A. M. Dirac's widow to promote understanding of the value of theoretical physics in human and veterinary medicine. Until recently, he was Chief Scientific Officer of IBM Global Healthcare and Life Sciences, and then Global Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences, an IBM Distinguished Engineer, and previously, Strategic Advisor at IBM Research headquarters. O. K. BAEK is a Senior Solutions Architect at IBM, specializing in healthcare and with a passionate interest in the benefits and long-standing logic of Oriental medicine. He is particularly interested in the development of novel architectures for sharing and using medical information securely, and in translational research, the matter of rapidly delivering the results of medical research and genomics to enhance everyday clinical decisions.

Preface.

About the Authors.

1 A Short Preview of Mankind, Medicine, Molecules, and
Machines.

2 From Prehistory to Hippocrates.

3 The Road to the New Medicine.

4 The Imminent Challenge: Medicine as an Industry.

5 The Next Decade: Personalized Medicine and the Digital Patient
Record.

6 Enforcing your Rights: Medical Ethics, Consent, Privacy, and
IT.

7 Holistic Medicine and IT.

8 Architecting It All.

9 Guardian Angels: Knowing Our Molecules, Drug and Vaccine
Design, Medical Decision Support, Medical Vigilance and
Defense.

10 What Next? At One with the Engines of Hippocrates.

Glossary.

Clinical Trial Terms.

Notes, Bibliography, and Further Reading Guide.

Index.

"We should not throw a stone to the authors for not having limited
the subject of this book to the necessity of digital records
running on computers for patients rightly waiting for a
personalized healthcare. Rather, the reader will also enjoy the
large spectrum of knowledge delivered through innumerable
digressions hopefully made re-accessible through a generous index.
Written with a witty journalistic style, this book lets itself read
like a novel rich in unexpected developments."

--Jean Garnier, Editor-in-Chief, Biophysical
Review

"In this book, Robson and Baek, both experts of the interface
between medicine and computer, led the reader to a journey
encompassing many disciplines. Though daunting at first, one cannot
help appreciate the perspective from history, health, philosophy,
economy, mathematics and IT. As history has shown, IT, along with
many other drug discovery technologies, contributed to the golden
age of the drug industry signified with the era of blockbuster
drugs. In today's environment with the paucity of blockbuster
drugs, one cannot help to wonder if drug discovery technologies
including IT should be attenuated or extenuated.

This book could not be out at a more opportune time. Americans are
now burdened with the crushing weight of healthcare cost. One of
the cost-saving measures, recognized by both President Obama and
the Congress, is digitization of medical records. In addition, this
book also covers topics such as patent-based drug design,
pharmacogenomics, medical vigilance, and many other gems. It is a
tribute to the authors' remarkable breadth of knowledge and
organizational skills to assemble them together. Anyone interested
in health care, especially the ones interested in pharmaceutical
informatics, would benefit from reading this book."

--Jie Jack Li