Healthcare needs a new prescription: Technology!
Healthcare is a complex ecosystem as there are several interrelated factors at play. The ageing population is leading to higher demand for medical care. Every country has a different healthcare ecosystem with different payer-payee relationships, all of which makes the healthcare industry a very challenging problem to solve. How can technology best support this industry by mitigating some of these complexities and make the delivery of healthcare more efficient?
Demographic changes and explosion of healthcare costs are some of the major challenges faced by the healthcare system today. Going digital can definitely help to meet these challenges. Previously it was only possible either to improve the quality of medical care for individuals or to reduce costs for the general public. Technology now enables high-quality, affordable care for all. It makes it easier, cheaper and faster to access healthcare. It also ensures that people in rural or structurally weak regions/communities have access to medical expertise, for example through telemedicine solutions.
Technological progress brings many benefits not only to patients, but also to physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals. The use of new technologies and developments in healthcare can help saving costs, overcome supply bottlenecks and at the same time strengthen the autonomy and participation of patients. Technological progress and digitization offer great potential for increasing efficiency and effectiveness in this area and thus reducing existing overuse, underuse and misuse.
With the possibilities of applying new technologies and trends, enormous changes will take place in the areas of biotech, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical technology. The next decade will bring about a fundamental transformation in the way individuals experience healthcare and technology.
Let’s take a look at three key tech developments in the healthcare sector:
Virtual and Augmented Reality
The possibilities of virtual reality are almost unlimited. The use of virtual and augmented reality is a promising enrichment, especially in the training and further education of physicians. Complicated surgical procedures can be completely simulated and practiced in an immersive way. Patients can also make use of virtual reality: Pain patients can dive into other worlds. This makes innovative rehabilitation measures for ergotherapy or physiotherapy much more successful. Here, for example, virtual reality games can be used alongside classic ergotherapy and physiotherapy to compensate for motor disorders or reconnect nerves.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence already performs many tasks in the healthcare system. The tasks range from intelligent scheduling of operation theaters, ML models reading x-rays and scans, tools to predict disease outbreaks to virtual assistance or bots. They can create medical reports or treatment analyses, for example. Large amounts of medical monitoring data sets are being collected - both in hospital and non-hospital settings. These data-sets can be used to develop machine learning models with a specific purpose or goal. For example, signs of possible epileptic seizures or circulatory disorders can be detected early on. Artificial intelligence, however, has many other applications that will become even more important in the future. For example, AI can also be used in pharmaceutical research or medical diagnosis.
Use of AI in Healthcare poses several ethical and regulatory questions that must be answered before we see bots diagnosing patients at clinics. The hyper-local nature of healthcare makes these challenges even harder to address with common regulations. For example, imagine an AI powered device that detects TB from coughing patterns, with a remote session over the phone. Even if such a device has a small percentage of false positives, in developing countries it would make a significant positive impact on the population that simply lacks access to any diagnostic tools at all!
Another disruption that is just around the corner is the 5G networks. With blazing fast speeds that 5G promises, remote robotic surgery augmented with AI will become a reality. Real-time remote monitoring for complex conditions, quick access to large high resolution images and faster information exchange will make high quality healthcare more accessible.
Wearables
The potential of wearables for medicine is enormous. There are already many approaches to integrating the smart helpers into diagnosis and therapy. One wearable that has existed for a long time is the long-term ECG. In the future, various consumer systems will also be able to record a long-term ECG and provide a cardiac variability analysis. Wearables will not only be worn on the body as wristbands, fitness watches or smartwatches, but could also be incorporated into garments or attached directly to the skin as plasters.
Medical wearables are increasingly being developed in the form factor of intelligent plasters and will thus enable patients to apply long-term monitoring or medication almost invisibly to outsiders. The advancing miniaturization will also make ever smaller and for the patient more pleasant medical monitoring solutions possible in the future.
In the last decade or so, technology has already shown that it can have a significant positive impact in this complex sector that healthcare is. There is still room for improvement and any technological product needs to be implemented smartly and used by people the right way. But we are on the right path to use the advantages that technology offers.