Musical chimes of the clock have been replaced by cacophonous beeps of digital timepieces just like the smell of old yellowing paper wafting through thick volumes stacked in a library is replaced by online databases, Wikipedia and other sources. But are these true replacements? Or only alternative substitutes that provide a more convenient, according to some, or more “digital” manner of receiving, sending and imparting information?
Healthcare as an industry depends on databases for a holistic management and administration. However, there are still some medical facilities which find conventional and manual data-entry indispensable in spite of being endowed with cloud-based information sharing and regulatory devices.
Stephen Sottong, an engineering librarian, delineates the seven stages of “technology” just as Shakespeare fragments human life into seven acts. The fifth stage, in his opinion, is that of a “False Pretender”.
The name suggests that at this stage the technology is posing or acting as its older version but with modifications and improvements. This technology, however, cannot supplant or replace the older technology. It can merely co-exist with it and be consumed as a more advance or an ameliorated facsimile of the original or older technology.
Thus, although the advent of network-based and clouded data magement systems is making waves in the healthcare sector, they can never in totality replace manual induction of patient and facility information. Hospitals which boast of a colossal magnitude in terms of patient traffic and personnel also bank of traditional methods of assessing and evaluating the afflicted within the confines of their faculty.
The key distinguishing factor between a False Pretender and a new technology that completely supplants or supersedes its predecessor is the fact that a False Pretender in practice or theory cannot do that. It can only be existent with its predecessor and not instead of it.
To exemplify this, one can take the instance of E-books. Even though they are popular and easily accessible, the contrivance of actual books has not fallen into obscurity.
In fact, only after a book is published in paper, does an ebook version emerge on the web. Even the books that start out as ebooks can be published in paper, thus forming a direct-inverse relationship between the newer and older technology.
Similarly, drawing parallels with the healthcare industry, even though portable diagnostic machines and testing equipment is all the rage at the moment, they can never truly turn the conventional equipment used for the same purposes, absolutely obsolete.
To draw this account to a close, one can say that False Pretenders in healthcare are merely ameliorated and altered versions of an older technology and not a counterpart that can, in its entirety, obliterate the preceding medical technology.
