Disruptive/ transformative technology focusing on health literacy and prevention?

Hello all,

 

I'd be delighted to receive any suggestions you may have of examples of disruptive/transformative technologies that pay attention to the best practices of health literacy while focusing on prevention of poor health. Suggestions?

 

thanks,

Andrew

Comments

Hi Julie and all,

Disruptive/transformative technology is technology that is new, developed to work on a problem in a different way than established technology. Below is a more fleshed out definition from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/disruptive-technology.  And you can see A gallery of disruptive technologies put together by McKinsey & Company.

"Disruptive technology is a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that unexpectedly displaces an established technology. 

In his 1997 best-selling book, "The Innovator's Dilemma," Christensen separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application. (Such was the case with Alexander Graham Bell's "electrical speech machine," which we now call the telephone.) 

In his book, Christensen points out that large corporations are designed to work with sustaining technologies. They excel at knowing their market, staying close to their customers, and having a mechanism in place to develop existing technology. Conversely, they have trouble capitalizing on the potential efficiencies, cost-savings, or new marketing opportunities created by low-margin disruptive technologies. Using real-world examples to illustrate his point, Christensen demonstrates how it is not unusual for a big corporation to dismiss the value of a disruptive technology because it does not reinforce current company goals, only to be blindsided as the technology matures, gains a larger audience and marketshare and threatens the status quo."

 

best,

Nell Eckersley

Thank you, Nell!

Do you know of any good examples from the field of adult education, or education in general? Or of course to answer Andrew's question, the health field?

They are constantly developing new technologies for the growing population of people with diabetes. There are new devices that help to monitor blood sugar and deliver insulin throughout the day automatically. I can't speak to how well they follow best practices in health literacy, but they do take away a lot of the demand for calculating various numbers, and they do have the capacity to improve the health of diabetics through better overall control of blood sugar.

The definition above indicates that large corporations "...have trouble capitalizing on the potential efficiencies, cost-savings, or new marketing opportunities created by low-margin disruptive technologies." To me - government entities are more like large corporations than a smaller innovative startup - and the field of education is primarily funded by governments, large corporations and/or large post-secondary systems.  So in some ways, it seems to me that many of the "disruptive" technologies that hit adult education happen long after they have impacted the corporate world, governments and the rest of the field of education.  Thus  AE may benefit greatly from seeing these changes coming from a loooong way off - and/or seeing the larger entities cope with the disruption. I've only been in Adult Literacy education since 2000 - and I just haven't had the impression that it has made significant changes very fast - but then perhaps I am in the trees and unable to see the forest? :)  Also, Adult Education, maight  could be seen as an odd conglomeration of both large entity funding and local "innovative" funding/thinking - and thus can get a jump on innovation earlier than larger corporations - but have the time to incorporate it at a slower pace?

All that said, here is one thing that I think may have sort of "blindsided" and revolutionized adult education - causing significant change relatively quickly:  Inernet-based Data management systems (prompting initiatives in data-based program level and instructional decision-making).  Did this change have a similar effect on health systems, policies, rules etc? (Digital records management, HIPPA, online patient portals, screenings, etc.)