Tech Trends to look out for in the Health Sector

It goes without saying that advances in healthcare technology are fundamentally changing the way that medicine is practiced. Recently, it would seem that these advances have begun to evolve more rapidly and more profoundly.

For healthcare organizations, it is critical to stay ahead of the curve. In an industry as competitive and disrupted as healthcare is today, not staying on top of trends will invariably result in lost opportunities, less resiliency, and problematic cultural lag.

With that in mind, I’d like to share what we see as the top five emerging healthcare technology trends within the healthcare industry:

On the Mend, On Top of the Trend

Your strategic planning should take these healthcare technology trends into consideration in the coming months to ensure you remain competitive and compliant, and most of all to ensure quality patient care.

1.      Visibility as an Operational Challenge

As the amount and sophistication of connected devices in healthcare organizations' networks increases, visibility into both singular endpoints and the entire network is becoming more challenging.

The expansion of the Internet of Things has complicated every healthcare organizations' cybersecurity strategy; with the challenge being particularly pesky in view of threats coming to form the most unlikely places. The proliferation of non-standard network connections means healthcare organizations may not even realize that certain devices could represent new vulnerabilities. 

Whether a device is always connected to the network, periodically connected, or even connected just once, healthcare organizations must be able to catalog it and ensure it doesn't open the door to a compromise of data confidentiality or integrity.

In today's connected ecosystems — to ease, accelerate, and secure clinical operations — a more cybery-intelligent inventory management process is needed; one powered by real-time device tracking and classification and that lends itself to smart risk-wise segmentation regimes. 

2.Cloud Transformation in Hospitals

Cloud-based infrastructure and data management has gained even more importance to healthcare organizations in recent years. Cloud-based storage offers the advantages of reduced setup and maintenance costs, as well as greater provisioning flexibility and data accessibility.

Moving to a more cloud-oriented model can also consolidate and streamline compliance and security requirements. As cloud service providers have improved their ability to secure data with investments in highly specialized staff, firewalls, and monitoring, they offer hospitals a relatively safe and cost-effective way to outsource the lion's share of data management.

3. Integrations Between Hospital EMRs & Personal Devices

Few aspects of healthcare have been subject to more drastic and rapid changes than medical records. EMRs have revolutionized how healthcare providers store, access, and transmit patient health records. And while the transition hasn't always been easy (in many cases, it has been quite arduous), EMRs have opened new pathways to delivering care and tracking patient health information.

As EMRs have improved throughout the past decade, they have become more interoperable not only within hospitals' internal data management ecosystems but with third-party services and applications. Increasingly — thanks to wearable fitness trackers — healthcare delivery organizations have new behavioral insights from which to draw as they examine and prescribe medications and lifestyle changes for their patients.

Stay On Top Of the Trends to Stay Competitive

It is imperative that healthcare organizations take advantage of the ever-improving features offered by modern technology — from EMR integrations to cloud storage t. However, as healthcare organizations implement more technology and embrace greater connectivity, the cyber risks to their networks and that data it contains also increases.

Implementing these technologies alongside a holistic cybersecurity plan and tooling fit for purpose is key not only for regulatory compliance but also for patient well-being, improved healthcare outcomes, and increased patient satisfaction. 

The Right Partner

Coltech Consulting has built a professional foundation of skills and capabilities we can support you in re-addressing your strategies, re-assess and plan your transformation journey, deliver change at a new lower cost base without compromising quality, that enables you to conduct your business in a new secure, scalable operational environment that adds value, not cost and realize your investment.