AMA CEO outlines digital challenges, opportunities facing medicine

 In his address to the House of Delegates at the American Medical Association (AMA) Annual Meeting, AMA CEO James L Madara, M.D. today outlined the challenges and opportunities facing medicine in today's rapidly-changing digital economy. Madara drew a direct line between the technological innovations happening today and the challenges that dotted the health landscape at the time of the AMA's founding, when the AMA played a leading role in stamping out quackery and creating standards for medical education.

"Today we have really remarkable tools—robotic surgery, new forms of radiation treatment, targeted biologics; and we live in a time of rapid development in the digital world—telemedicine as an example," Madara said in prepared remarks. "But appearing in disguise among these positive products are other digital so-called advancements that don't have an appropriate evidence base, or just don't work that well—or actually impede care, confuse patients and waste our time.