In her research, Lisa Marsch uses technology in interventions for substance abuse among youth and adult populations. Marsch, director of the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center, will speak about her work and the influence of science and technology in healthcare when she delivers the 28th Presidential Faculty Lecture today.
The lecture, “Transforming Health Care via Science-based Technology,” will take place in Filene Auditorium in Moore Hall at 4 p.m. The talk will cover how to take advantage of new digital technology to develop innovative models of healthcare delivery.
Marsch will also elaborate on the role that technology may play in improving the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders and related behavioral health issues. These preventions and treatments will be implemented in a manner that is cost-effective, ensures quality and personalization and enables the widespread integration of science-based interventions.
Marsch utilizes science-based tools and resources in a scalable way, leveraging technology bases to aid outreach. Her work also addresses a wide variety of behavioral phenomena including substance abuse, mental health, chronic pain management, medication adherence, diet exercise and smoking cessation.
“Our goal is to use science to form a new model of technology delivered healthcare that increases the quality and reach of care,” Marsch said.
In 1987, under then-College President James Freedman, the College began the lecture series to highlight faculty research.
Antonia Barry, government lecturer and event programmer, said that the series, in Freedman’s words, was meant to “celebrate the life of the mind — the enduring delights of the scholarly life, the rich satisfaction of intellectual exchange, and the disciplined pursuit of ideas that matter.”
Marsch said that the center, a National Institutes of Health funded Center of Excellence, focuses on digital technology.
“The Center for Technology and Behavioral Health is focused on using digital technologies like mobile devices and new waves of social media with data analytics to understand health and health behavior in entirely new ways and provide new models of intervention delivery for all kinds of populations in every setting,” Marsch said.
Additionally, the center has partners nationwide as well as a growing international presence.
Data now shows that the development of mobile technology tools can impact behavior and subsequent health outcomes as demonstrated by the center’s work with people with chronic drug addiction, she added.
Thayer School of Engineering professor Peter Robbie, who is teaching a course on healthcare and biotechnology in the spring, said that medical technology is moving into a new age.
“Many believe that we are moving into a unique period of explosive growth in medical innovation due to the autocatalytic combination of three technologies,” Robbie said.
The three fields he listed were computing areas including mobile technology and artificial intelligence; materials science like biomaterial and nanotechnology; and biotechnology such as genetic and tissue engineering.
With the development of new patient-centric technology based models, there will be a shift from hospital-centric healthcare to a patient-centric one, he added. Mobile, wearable, connected technologies will monitor and help to provide care for patients remotely.
Marsch also talked about this shift, noting that personalized resources available on mobile devices allows for constant access to people who need assistance managing conditions like drug addiction.
“We can more than double the effectiveness of treatment programs,” Marsch said. “We see similar patterns of effects across all kinds of populations in dealing with mental health, medical resumes, chronic pain and HIV. There are many different types of end users. It is leveled by ubiquitous technology.”
Marsch will discuss her experiences working with those suffering from chronic drug addiction and how the center has helped them manage drug abuse.
Many current technologies fall outside FDA jurisdiction because the FDA is evolving its guidelines by which it defines mobile health apps as medical devices. Some diagnostic measurement devices are under the FDA’s ruling, but there are very specific categories about what the FDA will regulate. The medical technologies are still rapidly evolving, Marsch said. She added that these broad reaching devices are important because low- and middle-income countries with poor and nutritionally vulnerable populations increasingly have access to mobile phones.
“It is a tremendous opportunity to provide cost effective care with incredible reach,” she added.
Alexa Green is a junior from Boca Raton, FL. She is majoring in English, with minors in Arabic and Public Policy. After joining the newspaper her freshman winter, she served as a beat reporter covering Hanover & the Upper Valley. Following this position, Alexa became the associate managing news editor. Outside of the newsroom, she is a tour guide on campus, works for the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, and conducts research in the English department. During her off term, Alexa worked for I.B.Tauris, an independent publishing house in London, U.K., editing and publicizing international relations and politics books. She is passionate about the ways in which policy, current events, history and journalism have interconnected roles in defining global issues.
