Newswise — LA JOLLA – Jan. 15, 2018 – The emerging field of digital medicine has the potential to transform healthcare on a global scale. Pioneering studies are being conducted to generate the clinical evidence necessary to drive widespread adoption of digital health solutions, both within a clinical setting and by consumers.
To support the dissemination of these studies, researchers from the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have launched an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal—npj Digital Medicine. The new publication is a collaboration between STSI and Nature Research, a portfolio of high-quality journals and services and part of Springer Nature, a leading global research, educational and professional publisher.
The editors-in-chief of npj Digital Medicine are Eric Topol, MD, a TSRI professor and the director of STSI, and Steven Steinhubl, MD, STSI’s director of Digital Medicine. Both are leaders in this new field of research.
“We see this journal as a service we’re able to provide to the community in order to accelerate the development and implementation of digital health solutions and to engage individuals from a broad range of sectors,” says Steinhubl.
In the inaugural editorial, Topol and Steinhubl define digital medicine as the use of “digital tools to upgrade the practice of medicine to one that is high-definition and far more individualized.” Technologies such as biosensors, smartphones, cloud computing and artificial intelligence make it possible to digitize human beings, gathering health data on an individual level in real time.
Digital medicine, however, encompasses more than the devices that enable the collection and transfer of health data. The field merges a wide range of specialties including computer science, clinical care, engineering, behavioral science, ethics and many more. npj Digital Medicine aims to provide a platform that allows stakeholders from all backgrounds to discuss topics and research findings in an academic, evidence-based environment.
“We’re seeing a shift toward a democratization of medicine,” says Topol. “These are early days for digital medicine, but research in this field is thriving. We hope that npj Digital Medicine will become a reliable resource for clinicians, researchers and even patients, for reliable information about how digital technologies can transform care.”
npj Digital Medicine can be viewed online at https://www.nature.com/npjdigitalmed/
About The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the world's largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs more than 2,500 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientists—including two Nobel laureates and 20 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering or Medicine—work toward their next discoveries. The institute's graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. In October 2016, TSRI announced a strategic affiliation with the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), representing a renewed commitment to the discovery and development of new medicines to address unmet medical needs. For more information, see www.scripps.edu.
About the Scripps Translational Science Institute
The Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) at The Scripps Research Institute focuses on individualized medicine, using the tools of digital medicine and genomics to better understand each person and render more effective healthcare. In 2016, STSI was awarded a grant for over $200M by the National Institutes of Health’s Precision Medicine Initiative to lead the All of Us Research Program’s Participant Center. STSI is further supported, since 2008, by the flagship NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award to promote human health and train future leaders in biomedicine. For more information, visit www.stsiweb.org.
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