Informative Essay: Nanotechnology In The Medical Field

In today’s time of demand and supply of healthcare needs, organizations must discover or improve services that can meet the needs of patients’ whole at the same time generating revenue as well as achieving high standards for quality of care. One way organizations have done this is by investing in robotic systems to carry out a range of surgeries. In the following presentation I will discuss the topics of: Investing in the MAKO RIO Robotic System, The Utilization of the RIO Robotic System, Stakeholders

Medical technology encompasses a wide range of healthcare products and is used to diagnose, monitor, and treat diseases or medical conditions that affect humans. This may included but not limited too, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical equipment. Such technologies are intended to improve the quality of healthcare delivered through earlier diagnosis, less invasive treatment options and reductions in hospital stays and rehabilitation times. Recent advances in medical technology have also focused on cost reduction. Medical technology may include medical devices, information technology, biotech, and healthcare services. The impacts of medical technology may involve social and ethical issues. For example physicians may seek objective information from technology rather than listening to subjective patient reports. A major contributor of healthcare expenditure in America is the advancement of medical technology. According to several studies it is shown that there is a correlation between the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and money allocated to healthcare. One of the leading theories is that medical technology is growing faster than expected.

United States health system, the biggest in the world, employs most up-to-date and state-of-the-art technologies in healthcare. US is the world leader in research and development in biomedical field. The magnitude of the research in healthcare and medical innovations that come out of US, in general have been the largest. US contributes, influences and drives medical research in various parts of the world with great emphasis on quality of human life. US pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have access to biggest markets in the world and yet Americans spend more than 17% of country’s GDP towards healthcare, the largest in the world. In spite of that, US healthcare system suffers from complex rules, less coverage and no real cost

The reality, from analysis of facts, is that American health care is superior. This inescapable conclusion derives from actual data, not opinion. The world’s leading journals are filled with studies demonstrating the superiority of American medical care to care found in other countries with systems more heavily controlled by government bodies. These studies verify better survival from serious diseases like cancer, better access to treatment for the most prevalent chronic diseases, wider access to preventative care and cancer screening, broader availability of the newest life changing medical technology, wider access to innovative, lifesaving cures and safer, less invasive treatments, more rapid access to highly trained specialists, and ultimately far better access to the world’s leading doctors and medical scientists who themselves are the source of the world’s leading innovations by any metric

The United States has the best and most advanced health care in the world. Advances in medicine here have saved countless lives and lengthened and enriched the lives of others.

United States health system, the biggest in the world, employs most up-to-date and state-of-the-art technologies in healthcare. U.S. is the world leader in research and development in the biomedical field. The magnitude of the research in healthcare and medical innovations that come out of the U.S., in general have been the largest. U.S. contributes, influences and drives medical research in various parts of the world with great emphasis on the quality of human life. U.S. pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have access to biggest markets in the world and yet Americans spend more than 17% of country’s GDP towards healthcare, the largest in the world. In spite of that, US healthcare system suffers from complex rules,

     Nanotechnology is the creation of functional materials, devices and systems through control of matter at the scale of 1-100 nanometers, and the exploitation of novel properties and phenomena at the same scale; nanotechnology is also called molecular manufacturing. Nanotechnology is a result of the combination of different scientific fields such as physics, biology, engineering chemistry, and computer science in addition to many more. The foundation of nanotechnology is that atoms make up all things in our world; which can be manipulated to produce almost anything.

United States healthcare system is the largest in the world that employs most up-to-date and state-of-the-art technologies in healthcare. U.S. is the world leader in research and development in the biomedical field. The magnitude of the research in healthcare and medical innovations that come out of the U.S., in general have been the largest. U.S. contributes, influences and drives medical research in various parts of the world with great emphasis on the quality of human life. U.S. pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have access to biggest markets in the world and yet Americans spend more than 17% of country’s GDP towards healthcare, the largest in the world. In spite of that, US healthcare system suffers from complex rules, less coverage and no real cost controls and that is a problem because it cannot sustain and not every citizen can afford it. (The Economist 2014)

The 21st century can rightfully be considered as the era of technology when the new inventions and discoveries will most likely affect all the segments of human life. At this point, some of the breakthrough inventions of our times have been in the medical field. Robotic surgery has become an almost common practice in the advanced medical world and new uses for robotic assisted surgery are everyday set in place. However, such developments also attract different interests and implications.

As citizens of the United States, we are used to the best. The best technology, the best doctors, and the best healthcare. Unfortunately, we have become so conditioned to receiving the best, that we expect nothing less, regardless of the cost. This has resulted in a nation that, in 2013, spent 17.1 percent of its annual GDP on healthcare, as compared to the Netherlands who spent approximately 12.9 percent on healthcare (World Health Organization). This is a growing problem that must be addressed as healthcare is a finite commodity that we must allocate efficiently if we wish to maximize both lives and dollars saved. “After all, every dollar spent on healthcare is one not spent on education, infrastructure, or defense (Tanner).” Several key healthcare costs that can be attributed to the large amount of spending include an over-diagnosing of prostate and breast cancer, the desire for the newest, more expensive technology despite a lack of evidence that it is more effective, and individuals not properly weighing their costs and benefits. If we can manage to reduce spending as a result of these issues, our country may be able to drastically reduce spending on healthcare and get back on par with the rest of the world.

The Da Vinci Surgical System is a large purpose-built robot controlled by a surgeon that performs minimally invasive surgical procedures on patients. The system incorporates an ergonomically designed surgeon's console, a patient-side module with four interactive robotic arms, each with interchangeable surgical instruments and a 3-dimensional endoscopic vision system. Powered by high-tech supercomputers, the surgeon's hand movements are scaled, filtered and then converted into precise movements of the surgical attachments. The designers of the system are a team of doctors, engineers and biomedical engineers at a company called Intuitive Surgical.

Nanotechnology is the development of atoms in a certain object. Nanotechnology has become very popular in the past few years. It is a way to rebuild the systems of life. To make systems move faster than ever before. Nanometer is about 10 times the size of an atom. Each of these has a huge effect on a system. Still there are questions out there that keep people wondering how important nanotechnology is to us. Many wonder how will it affect them and if we should continue this research. I myself wondered about nanotechnology. After researching this topic I have learned new and interesting facts to help me understand the entire concept.

Technology is transforming the medical field with the design of robotic devices and multifaceted imaging. Even though these developments have made operations much less invasive, robotic systems have their own disadvantages that prevent them from replacing surgeons all together. Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a broad notion encompassing a lot of common procedures that existed prior to the introduction of robots. It refers to general procedures that keep away from long cuts by entering the body through small, usually about 1cm, entry incisions, through which surgeons use long-handled instruments to operate on tissue inside the body. Such operations are directed by viewing equipment and, therefore, do not automatically need the use of a robot. Yet, it is not incorrect to say that computer-assisted and robotic surgeries are categories that fall under minimally invasive surgery (Robotic Surgery, n.d.).

Jeremy Rifkin wrote, in his article Biotech Century: Playing Ecological Roulette with Mother Natures Design, "Humans have been remaking the Earth for as long as we have had a history." Well the path of history humans have chosen to take also affects how we remake the Earth. In Neal Stephensons novel, The Diamond Age, one is shown how the technology of the time reshapes the political, economical and educational aspects of history. That technology is the manipulation of molecules into atomic-sized machines called nano-machines. Stephenson brilliantly shows how such a powerful and truly revolutionary technology like nanotechnology could change life, as we now know it, or they in the future know life. Nanotechnology, as

The idea of placing a very small controllable object into the human body in order to accomplish a medical feat, believe it or not, came from a science fiction film! In 1966, a movie by the name of Fantastic Voyage was produced and explored the subject. In this movie, a spy with critical information was nearly assassinated and left comatose with a potentially fatal clot in his brain. To save his life and to retrieve the top secret information, a submarine was shrunk to microbe size and injected into his body with a team of surgeons onboard. The team navigated to his brain to mechanically destroy the clot and save the spy along with his secret information.