In the second half of October, the second national festival dedicated to youth, innovations, and healthcare technologies will take place in Tehran. The event is scheduled for October 14 to 16 and will focus on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine.
The festival is organized by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. According to ISNA, the event's themes will cover areas such as 'AI and machine learning in healthcare,' 'digital health and telemedicine,' 'new technologies in rehabilitation,' 'biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and pharmaceuticals,' 'law and ethics in digital healthcare,' 'medical devices,' 'nutrition and food industry,' 'psychology and psychotherapy,' and 'environmental health.'
This event serves as an important platform for students from educational institutions, innovators, technologists, healthcare experts, and researchers, allowing them to present their original ideas. Furthermore, it facilitates networking between owners of innovative concepts, specialists, and relevant organizations, paving the way for the support and implementation of these ideas.
Participants can concentrate on ways to increase the intelligence of medical services, improve the quality of healthcare, develop digital tools, and create innovative solutions to overcome challenges facing the healthcare system.
Modern communication technologies have fundamentally changed people's lifestyles, social interactions, and access to information, and the healthcare sector is no exception to this digital transformation. The emergence of tools such as health applications, telemedicine, electronic health records, and online health platforms has made digital healthcare an integral part of the healthcare system.
Digital healthcare brings certain advantages but also presents challenges. It is defined as the use of information and communication technologies to promote health, improve access to medical services, and enhance the quality of medical care. Digital healthcare reduces the distance between the patient and the service provider, making healthcare more accessible to various segments of society.
This approach plays a key role in raising public awareness, disease prevention, and promoting a healthy lifestyle. Nevertheless, digital healthcare faces several difficulties. The most significant of these is the digital divide, which represents inequality in access to and use of communication technologies. This gap can arise for various reasons, including income level, place of residence, age, and literacy.
Researchers from Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran studied digital healthcare in the country to determine its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as reported by ISNA. The research results indicated that digital healthcare in Iran possesses significant advantages, such as national health platforms, growing application of AI tools in medical services, and the availability of online health services.
Among the main weaknesses identified are the lack of a comprehensive legal framework for protecting medical data, integration issues between digital platforms, low levels of digital literacy and communication infrastructure, and structural resistance to technological changes. This underscores the necessity of implementing both new technologies and reforms in legislative and structural spheres.
To achieve the goal of transforming the healthcare system, the Ministry of Health has developed eight projects focused on smart electronic healthcare using artificial intelligence. These projects include improving health literacy and self-care, creating an intelligent referral system, launching a national health observatory, transforming medical data into actionable knowledge, managing the supply chain of subsidized medicines using AI, establishing a Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG) payment system, developing a productive smart hospital, and integrating online insurance processes.
