Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Sensors & Data-driven Generation of Medical Engineers
Zion Tse, Ph.D,, FIET, SMIEEE
Professor & Chair in Medical Robotics
University of York, Department of Electronic Engineering

This talk will look at how digital health has been developed over the time of COVID to assist the overwhelmed healthcare system currently in the UK, as well as knowledge of the future in mobile health we might expect, and the roles of doctors and patients in the future medicine. It will discuss the state of the art technologies near or already in the market as well as ongoing research prototypes and how the pandemic has helped accelerate the development of the healthcare internet of things.

Lecture to be held in the Tempest Anderson Lecture Theatre, Yorkshire Museum, YO1 7DR
at 7pm. This event is part of the York Festival of Ideas 2022 and free tickets can be booked on the Festival website:

York Festival of Ideas 2022

Member’s Report

This lecture was the Society’s contribution to the 2022 York Festival of Ideas. Professor Tse set the scene by describing the stresses experienced by various healthcare systems around the world owing to the COVID pandemic with emphasis on those experienced by the NHS. These stresses have resulted in a substantial increase in the research into innovative ways of using modern technology, particularly smartphones, to monitor and diagnose our individual health problems. A smartphone has a substantial and largely untapped capability for this kind of data gathering and processing owing to its ability to use externally generated apps. The smartphone is equipped with a range of sensors originally intended for personal entertainment and information systems such as navigation. Well known examples are microphones, flashlights, and cameras. With ingenuity these can be re-purposed for monitoring a wide range of physiological data such as body temperature, heart rate and even heart valve performance. The ease with which an app can be written, loaded onto many smartphones and the data gathered and analysed in clinical trials has been a game changer. The smartphone’s connectivity through 4G and 5G networks enables both individual clinical intervention without waiting for an appointment and wider population studies for public health applications. An astonishing range of clinical conditions is currently under investigation; Alzheimers, Asthma, Breast Cancer, Depression, Diabetes, Heart Failure, Hypertension, Obesity, and Sleep Disorders are those currently receiving the most attention.

Andy Marvin

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