The application of new technologies in health services is transforming the well-being of communities and the future of humanity. We know that, to improve health services, promote equity in access, and increase the efficiency and reach of medical treatments, the path is digital. In these times, the opportunity is enormous and the costs are relatively modest, we cannot miss it.
Digital technologies applied to health are not only intended for the development of medical equipment or clinical research, implementation of complex software systems or the definitive abandonment of paper in users' contact with health services. Digital technologies can also serve to further humanize the provision of healthcare. Health professionals who are freer from bureaucracy and less dedicated to the complex management of health information systems are professionals who are necessarily more dedicated to citizens, more attentive to their expectations and more capable of a more humanized clinical practice. This is how digital technologies can effectively bring better health results.
This is the basic objective of the Degree in Digital Technologies and Health. This Degree will promote the transmission and dissemination of scientific knowledge through the collection, storage, analysis, management, maintenance and systematization of existing information in healthcare organizations. User data, complementary diagnostic and therapeutic methods, technological equipment, invoice processing, human resources, are just some of the types of data that need to be organized in secure and functional digital systems.
Current healthcare systems are extremely complex and fragmented. Only a deep and interdisciplinary knowledge of the various aspects that characterize them will allow improving their quality, efficiency, scope and financial sustainability. It is by bringing together minds from computing, data science, artificial intelligence, electronics, mathematics and statistics, management and psychology, that technological innovation can flourish in this area. That's where we come in.
Director(s) message
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud technology, information systems, machine learning, connected devices, in an appropriate and ethical way, takes healthcare to a new level, citizen-oriented, in a continuously, intuitively and available wherever and whenever citizens need it. Furthermore, they can contribute to automating the routine work of healthcare professionals, reducing waiting lists for certain medical procedures, reducing the high costs associated with providing healthcare, supporting doctors in making daily decisions, and also in the prevention of risks related to financing and logistical operations (ambulance routes, medicine distribution, food waste or home care).
The year 2020 was full of surprises, but it will be unavoidably marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. This virus, which shook health structures around the world, forcing deep and rapid adaptations and changes, unlike any memory in more recent times, also ended up becoming a huge opportunity for Science. Technology has paved the way to discover new solutions for preventing risks in the construction of predictive and prescriptive models but, more importantly, it has made it possible to eliminate the geographical barriers that separate scientists from all over the world, drastically reducing the time to develop an effective vaccine against COVID-19. This health result, crucial for all of us, was only possible thanks to the timely combination of technologies with the human component that this process required.
Information is one of the most abundant and valuable resource in healthcare. We want to provide students with skills to plan and support the digitalization of health services, to be able to intervene in data-based decision making, ensure the interoperability of information systems in health organizations, thus allowing to increase the quality of service provision health care.
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