Topol joins AT&T as chief medical adviser

It’s not complicated. AT&T has selected one of the hottest names in cardiology as its chief medical adviser. AT&T announced that the popular author and wireless tech guru Eric Topol, MD, will lead the charge in its healthcare IT program.

Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and chief academic officer at Scripps Health in La Jolla, Calif., is a sought-after speaker at IT events such as the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference and the Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit. He also remains active in research that evaluates novel cardiovascular technologies such as a patch that detects arrhythmia.

Topol will continue in his position as chief academic officer at Scripps Health, according to AT&T. He also is a practicing cardiologist with Scripps Clinic and a professor of genomics at the Scripps Research Institute.

He has advocated the use of digital and mobile technologies in combination with genomics to personalize patient care in numerous publications, including his book “The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care,” published in 2012.

“With connected devices, the flow of health and medical information is going through a radical change, which puts patients in an exceptionally powerful and important position,” Topol said in a release. The AT&T endeavor will “seek to develop new solutions that will change the trajectory of digital health and impact patient outcomes.”

Topol is expected to provide “strategic guidance in key areas such as emerging devices and mHealth products and services,” according to AT&T.