Healthcare technology in society: Technology in Society Briefing

Healthcare technology is a well-established topic in the journal. However, the healthcare technology in society discourse has thus far lacked sufficient breadth and depth. In particular, there has been extensive reporting of information and communication technologies, including apps, cloud, Internet of Things, and social media. Yet, the wide range of other healthcare technologies with origins in different parts of the world have not been addressed sufficiently. Furthermore, underlying causal interactions between technology and society have received insufficient analyses. For example, diverse technological innovations contribute to common lifestyles that entail reduced body movement and over consumption. These technology-enabled lifestyles contribute to increased incidence of related mental and physical health problems in societies throughout the world. Increased incidence of health problems then drive the development and introduction of new healthcare technologies. Moreover, global expansion of digital and physical infrastructures to enable the spread of technology-enabled human societies can contribute to the emergence of novel zoonotic diseases, which also drives the introduction of new healthcare technologies. Lack of breath and depth in previous analyses of healthcare technology in society are most evident by the lack of previous papers concerned with interactions between different societies’ natural environments, their local cultures, their traditional healthcare technologies, and global biomedical technologies. For example, historically, traditional healthcare technologies have been influenced by indigenous flora and local cultures. Now, traditional healthcare technologies can be combined with global biomedical technologies, which may based upon flora and cultures from other parts of the world. Overall, there has been a lack of indepth analysis of circular biosocial-technical causation in the current healthcare technology in society discourse.