The use of technology in medicine and health has expanded exponentially over the past decades and this expansion
seems unlikely to abate. Technology may bring with it potentially astonishing benefits but it also exacts an astronomic cost.
As technology has the ability to so profoundly affect individual and population health on a global scale, the main theme of The 5 th International Heart Health Conference (IHHC) will be the policy consideration of the use of technology and its influence both beneficial as well as detrimental, in stemming the global epidemic of cardiovascular disease.
Within the overarching theme of ‘technology and CVD’ there will be several foci. Key amongst these will be the policy discussion of the appropriateness of technology to the circumstances of low and middle-income countries (and to similar settings within developed countries) where exceedingly expensive high-tech strategies overwhelm if not completely eliminate more equitable and effective low-tech, population strategies. For low and middle-income countries this choice represents a huge opportunity cost, redirects scarce resources usually towards individual, end of life/end stage of disease ‘care’ options benefiting the relatively few and, neglects the population prevention thrust. Additionally, technology is propelled by formidable commercial interests that can frequently move it into use more quickly than the science that supports it would merit.
This ability to dominate the marketing and communications agenda can insinuate a specific technology into common usage without there being political or social appraisal as to its ‘appropriateness’ or desirability to the particular setting.
Because knowledge transfer and the technological tools to transfer knowledge are also important issues in discussing the discrepancies in health status between the developed world and low and middle-income countries the concept of ‘bridging the digital divide’ will be featured in The 5 th IHHC. As health and quality of life are dependent in some measure on access to information and the tools to acquire it, this divide between the world’s ‘have and have not’ states will be discussed and solutions to improve equitability and sustainability sought.