Due to the increasing connectivity among patients, medical professionals and even devices, two transitions will determine the year of 2014: from patient to person and from hospital to home. The whole healthcare experience must be redesigned in order to meet the expectations of today’s e-patients because they have to be in the center of delivering healthcare. The data, the devices and information required to give good care are mostly available but these elements are not always optimally connected. If policy makers realize the potential in connectivity, and innovation in digital health keeps on leading to key changes in healthcare, we are going to face an amazing year. 

Bertalan Mesko, MD, PhD, Clinician and Health Futurist adds his thoughts on John Nosta's piece on Digital Health for Forbes. I am so frustrated when I ask my doctors about possibilities I've heard about and I meet with lack of awareness or distrust from them. Nosta writes that he thought 2013 was going to be "the year of digital health." John Sculley is cited in this piece with "I predict that within 5 years telehealth services in the cloud will be as normal to most Americans as online banking is today." Let's hope it happens that quickly.

A doctor, Rafael Campo, and three of his students discuss the importance of poetry to their work. I'm taken by the doctor's words

"To me the patient's voice, the stories they have to tell are absolutely central to the work of healing. ... The poetry of the encounter helps me to think even more effectively and more thoughtfully really about that. I feel like listening to that story and really attuning my ear to the patients voice helps me listen to their heart more clearly ."

World Cup to begin with mind-controlled exoskeleton kick http://t.co/ncoDg5Wom9 the Walk Again Project. #BCI

— Richard Yonck (@ryonck) January 4, 2014

The Doctor's Office Of The Future: Coffeeshop, Apple Store, And Fitness Center http://t.co/HAq0ZRTPei

— Co.Exist (@FastCoExist) December 11, 2013

Fast Company demonstrates an unexpected benefit of the Affordable Care Act—as primary care physicians begin to see more patients and respond to the need to emphasize well being and deemphasize fee-for-service treatment, they will have to reimagine their offices. ("Doctors will need to start thinking like merchants and in terms of squeezing profitability out of every square foot. As architects and designers who view "space" as a tool to solve problems and make life better and more interesting, we reimagined the doctor's office as a cross between a vibrant retail space and serious medical office building") The illustrations that accompany this article are stunning; the ideas generated are brilliant. On one hand I'm disappointed that my concept of medical care is rooted so firmly in current practice; on the other I can't wait for ideas like this to be realized.

Gizmodo writes of an exercise machine that lets you know how well you're doing.