Farid Shirazi
Ryerson University, Canada
Title: The role of emergent technologies in managing public health and crisis issues
Biography
Biography: Farid Shirazi
Abstract
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the landscape of today’s business and communication platforms among people. For example, the number of global mobile cellphone subscribers has increased to 8.160 billion in 2018 which is 107% of total world population. This value in UAE constitutes the remarkable 205% according to ITU data. Emerging technologies enable the health institutes and organizations to continually create technology-based values for public and develop new crisis management models. Moreover, rapid technology transformation forces health organizations to change their strategy fast. In this context, health organizations must learn how to quickly adopt new technologies to ensure that they remain effective in communication when it comes to public health emergencies and the notion of crisis and risk management. It is argued that health professionals, including those in the health communication domain, often frame their messages regarding the possibility of serious public health harm as risk communication. In general, the management of natural disasters and public health emergencies has always included a significant communication component in the form of warnings, risk messages, evacuation notifications, messages regarding self-efficacy, information regarding symptoms and medical treatment, among many others (Reynolds & Seeger, 2005). The integration of smart wireless devices and big data analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) systems play important roles in connecting health organizations to patients, process data and facilitate interaction among parties. Also, the big data analytics and ML associated with new simulation algorithms offer health care management systems to shift from traditional reactive to proactive and predictive crisis management settings.