Technological Adoption and Trends in Health Sciences Teaching, Learning, and Practice (Advances in Medical Education, Research, and Ethics)

The use of technology in health sciences has a direct impact on health outcomes, as well as on the quality and the safety of healthcare processes. In addition, the use of new technological developments in medical education has proven to be greatly effective, as it allows to create realistic learning environments to experience with procedures and devices that will become common in medical practice.

However, bringing in new technologies into the health sector is a complex task. Different actors such as health and care practitioners, technological solution providers, health organizations and regulators and governing bodies, are involved in care provision. Thus, from the point of view of the technological research and development community it is important to have a comprehensive vision of the health sciences ecosystem (encompassing many different areas of research). This book provides an overview of the technological trends within the health sciences ecosystem, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the research presented to date and depicting the possible future research directions within education and practice.

Healthcare technologies are a highly valued tool for improving and transforming healthcare. As they are being adopted by the health community, there has been a reduction in the number of cases of human error, an improvement in clinical outcomes, easier coordination, and more efficient clinical practices.

This book has an impact on the different levels of the health sciences ecosystem. It allows developers of medical technologies to broaden their perspective for the creation of future medical technologies and applications, and on the other hand, allows practitioners and medical educators to gain insight into emerging technological research within the health sciences.

Samuel Marcos-Pablos received a Telecommunication Engineer's Degree in 2006, a M.Eng in robotics in 2009, and a Ph.D. in robotics in 2011 from the University of Valladolid (Spain). He has worked as a researcher at CARTIF's Robotics and Computer Vision Division from 2007 to 2017, where he has combined theoretical and field work. In 2018 he enrolled the Research GRoup in InterAction and eLearning at the University of Salamanca, where he focused his efforts in the development of technological ecosystems for the health sector. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been part of the Medical and Healthcare Robotics group of the Spanish Robotics Technology Platform (Hisparob) as well as the technical contact in Cartif for the European Robotics platforms euRobotics (the European Robotics Technology Platform) AISBL and SPARC (the Partnership for Robotics in Europe). He has focused his research efforts on multimodal human-machine interaction. Particularly, in the province of social assistance robotics in the socio-health field, through the development of multimodal interaction interfaces and software architectures.

Juan Antonio Juanes-Méndez is a permanent lecturer at the University of Salamanca, where he obtained his PhD in Medicine and Surgery, and a Software Technician by the Pontificia University of Salamanca. He is a member of the Experts' Board in ACADEMIA programme (Health Scienced Field), in the National Programme of Acreditation for Permanent Leacturers in Health Sciences, at the National Agency of Quality Assessment and Screditation (ANECA). He is a professor of Human Anatomy and teaches at the Medicine, Psychology and Pharmacy Faculties. He teaches as well in different Master's programmes: Neurosciences, Clinical Neuropsychology and Communication and Information Technologies in Education. Moreover, he is also a teacher of the Universitary Posgraduate Course on Dementia and Alzheimer diseases. Master en Física y Tecnología Médica He has been invited to take part in the Scientific Committee on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)in the Spanish Review of Medical Radiology. He coordinates the official reserach group Advanced Medical Visualization Systems, at the University of Salamanca; and collaborated with the research group: Grup d'Anatomia Virtual i de Simulació, del Centre de Recursos per a l'Aprenentatge i la Investigació, at the University of Barcelona. He has participated as director and collaborator in more than 30 funded research and innovation projects. He has been awarded with 14 research and teaching awards from Royal Medicine Academies and other national institutions. He is a co-author of 20 books of teching kind. He has collaborated in different projects involving diverse medical and university centres of Spain. He has published more than 170 articles in international and national academic journals, and has delivered more than 350 papers at international and international conferences. The moment being, he has supervised 30 doctoral theses. He has delivered more than 60 lectures in courses, days and symposia. He has been a chair in sessions and round tables at different Conferences and Simposia.