Interview by Silvia Rodríguez, editor of AECS to Ana Durán, CEO of Innobooster
Silvia Rodríguez: The title of your paper is “Research, Innovation and Investment: Three are multitude?” These three concepts should not, do not or cannot go together?
Ana Durán: It is important to clarify the concepts before entering into discussion:
- Research is the empirical advancement of science, acquiring knowledge and generating new services, products and processes. We are talking about inventions and discoveries.
- Innovation consists of bringing closer these leads into society. It is about applying and adapting the technology of scientific advancements to make products more personalized to their respective markets.
- Investment is the fuel needed for this to happen, the resources needed to carry out the project (HHRR, Material Resources, Economic Resources (Public or Private)).
Ideally, these concepts must be connected together to obtain progress in our society. Why? If there is no discovery, there is no progress; if there is not market approach, the product will be useless and if there is no investment of resources, the project gets paralyzed.
SR: Where has telemedicine had the greatest impact?
AD: Currently, telemedicine development has three types of solutions:
- Diagnostic solutions
- Patient monitoring or monitoring solutions
- Organizational management solutions and Big Data
SR: Are there any weak points for telemedicine? If so, what alternatives exist for improvement?
AD: The only weakness for me is that it does not facilitate human treatment, otherwise everything is advantage; solutions are oriented to generate more accurate and personalized diagnostics; Definitively more successful thanks to better data access, increased security and eliminating human mistakes. Patients are experimenting better treatments and services. Ehealth solutions should make life easier for patients, doctors and hospital managers.
SR: Can we define technology diagnosis as perfectly accurate?
AD: It certainly must be, since it prevents human error, automates processes and establishes decision rules based on results that have been objectively tested. Any possibility for human mistakes disappears.
SR: Why would you recommend assisting to the I International Congress of Telemedicine and Health Research?
AD: Telemedicine is a science that has a long way to go; it is exciting to discover current trends and improvements. I have seen in the agenda people with great backgrounds who are going to participate in this event and personally, I am curious to listen to them and looking forward to exchange opinions. It is a great honor to be part of Jaime del Barrio’s roundtable.