The Techs are Coming - Part 4: The Future of Healthcare with Applied Technologies
Gabriel Opoku Adusei, MSc, PhD
Founder at PharMedTech & TriuneTechnologies / Pharmaceutical / Medical Device / Digital Health / Applied Technologies in Healthcare
This is the last of the 4-part series on the topic of application of technologies in the delivery of healthcare, however, it is by no means the end of the ongoing discussion on the ingress of tech into the medical and healthcare spaces. In fact, it is the beginning of the long journey monitoring the emerging technologies into healthcare and the influence of them on every part of our lives.
This part of the series aims at highlighting some of the significant technology developments and their applications in the practice of medicine and healthcare.
The application of technologies in medical and healthcare is not a new thing but the pace of the emergence of innovations and the transformations they offer is at a record speed nowadays. The many modern healthcare facilities such as hospitals are undergoing digital transformation and this journey opens up a whole lot of possibilities and widens the scope of embracing technology in relation to healthcare.
The following snapshots are only a handful of the technologies being incorporated into the facilitation and delivery of medical healthcare service:
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) refers to the use of internet-connected devices and applications in the healthcare industry.
Examples of IoMT include:
IoMT combines a number of medical and health devices of wearable, mobile and fixed pieces of equipment with combination software applications through platforms and communication media to achieve the its intended purpose. The concept of IoMT depends on how robust the IT system is and connectivity as well as interoperability are critical to its safe use.
To an extent, the current Integrated Healthcare delivery partly utilises Connected Health and IoMT as part of its functional features as some aspects are still underdeveloped or undergoing trials. The recent significant developments in the application of various AI tools however offer a strong evidence that the future Integrated Healthcare Systems will fully embrace the requirements and characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems, thus, ensuring interoperability and continuing healthcare.
Whilst interoperability may focus on devices and systems, continuing healthcare would provide array of customised health services to meet the specific needs of individuals and families by coordinating a well-mapped out plan and employing professionals clinical and social care services, utilising?best practices, and implementing?solution based strategies in assisting individuals and families in overcoming challenges faced at home, school, work, and in the community.
In the advent of Digital Health, one of the most transformative shifts and trends starting to emerge and growing in use in the healthcare is the rise of a concept called ‘Quantified-Self’.
Quantified self refers both to the cultural phenomenon of self-tracking with technology and to a community of users and makers of self-tracking tools who share an interest in "self-knowledge through numbers". Quantified self practices overlap with the practice of lifelogging and other trends that incorporate technology and data acquisition into daily life, often with the goal of improving physical, mental, and emotional performance. The widespread adoption in recent years of wearable fitness and sleep trackers such as the Galaxy Watch, Fitbit, the Apple Watch and many more, combined with the increased presence of Internet of things in healthcare and in exercise equipment, have made self-tracking accessible to a large segment of the population.
The incorporation of wearable "intelligent" medical devices working with connected systems as part of healthcare delivery is growing as the devices and systems are improving in their functionalities and efficiencies.
The burden of effective chronic disease management strategies is becoming ever more critical for care providers as they seek transition to outcome dependent compensation structures. The ability to accurately predict and prevent adverse events is an essential component of modernising out-dated care models. As most of these conditions are exacerbated by lifestyle choices and poor management, clinical-grade wearables technologies are uniquely geared to provide deeper insight into these chronic illnesses with real-time multipoint data tracking solution both for remote and hospital care settings.
With all these focused healthcare use cases, wearables technologies are poised to evolve from technologies that simply reported real-time data to those that track, diagnose, and ultimately help in clinical decision making. Future consumer wearable applications are also likely to be more prescriptive for individual wellness by leveraging converging technology such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence for richer information about their lifestyle and wellbeing. Entailing this consumer adoption and demand are also expected to shift from general wearables to health-and-wellness-centric ones that continuously track body vitals as well as help in remote monitoring to enable self-chronic disease management and in improving an individual’s overall wellbeing.
Other modes of remote patient monitoring are designed to work in and with hospitals systems. in the future, such systems are gradually making their way into the communities and homes of patients.
Digital Medical Imaging plays key roles in diagnostic, treatment and management of health conditions. Medical digital imaging systems refer to modern medical imaging technologies and devices that capture, store, manipulate, and display high-quality digital images of internal structures, organs, and tissues to aid in the diagnosis, treatment planning, and monitoring of diseases and conditions of the human body. The developments in digital technology have changed the way Medical Imaging contributes to the practice of medicine, providing the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology).
Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the skin and bones, as well as to diagnose and treat disease. Medical imaging also establishes a database of normal anatomy and physiology to make it possible to identify abnormalities. Although imaging of removed organs and tissues can be performed for medical reasons, such procedures are usually considered part of pathology instead of medical imaging.
The advances with digital imaging is improving in its contribution to medical diagnosis, as it is one of the most important area in which image processing procedures are usefully applied. Image processing is an important phase in order to improve the accuracy both for diagnosis procedure and for surgical operation.?
Modern image processing is improving the manipulation of image by computer-mapping and subjecting a numerical representation of an object to a series of operations in order to obtain a desired result.
The application of AI with large language models in the processing of offer numerous advantages beyond what the clinical interpretation of scientists and clinicians can offer. Although, it area is still improving and has a big scope to grow into.
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In the modern era and future anticipation of using robots for some health care interactions is a promising way to continue the in-person and interactive contact between health care workers and sick patients, and in the near future, with robots. However, a key question that needs to be answered is how patients will react to a robot entering the exam room.
Research scientist and clinicians are actively working on robots that can help provide care to maximize the safety of both the patient and the health care workforce.?
Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) also referred to Gene Therapy in some regulated markets, are medicines for human use that are based on genes, tissues or cells. They include gene therapies, somatic cellular products and tissue engineered products. They can treat diseases that currently have limited or no therapeutic options by augmenting, repairing, replacing, or regenerating organs, tissues, cells, genes and metabolic processes in the body. They are at the forefront of medical healthcare innovation and have the potential to revolutionise the way diseases are treated and to transform the lives of patients. Such developments are paving way to precision medicine and targeted therapy.
Personalized medicine, also referred to as precision medicine, is a medical model that separates people into different groups—with medical decisions, practices, interventions and/or products being tailored to the individual patient based on their predicted response or risk of disease.?
In recent years, the concept has been given much attention and the growth of new diagnostic and informatics approaches that provide understanding of the molecular basis of disease, particularly genomics have been of scientific and clinical interest. They are also expected to impact the pharmaceuticals budget.??
In a parallel but related medtech development in internal medical examination, diagnostic and targeted therapeutic delivery approach, the use of capsule endoscopy technology, thus, a pill containing a small camera used to record internal images of the gastrointestinal tract for use in medical diagnosis is growing.
A smart pill is an ingestible capsule containing electronic or mechanical components that allows for localized drug delivery to specific regions of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract through a variety of mechanisms. These smart pills deliver localized, targeted therapeutics into the GI tract avoiding the harsh conditions normally limiting enteral administration. Those conditions include rapid transit through the GI tract, degradation, and poor absorption.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2017 approved the first drug in the U.S. with a digital ingestion tracking system. Abilify MyCite (aripiprazole tablets with sensor) has an ingestible sensor embedded in the pill that records that the medication was taken. The product is approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, acute treatment of manic and mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder and for use as an add-on treatment for depression in adults.
The system works by sending a message from the pill’s sensor to a wearable patch. The patch transmits the information to a mobile application so that patients can track the ingestion of the medication on their smart phone. Patients can also permit their caregivers and physician to access the information through a web-based portal.
Proposed by Robert A. Freitas Jr in his 1998 paper "A Mechanical Artificial Red Blood Cell: Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology", Respirocytes are hypothetical, microscopic, artificial red blood cells that are intended to emulate the function of their organic counterparts, so as to supplement or replace the function of much of the human body's normal respiratory system. Respirocytes are an example of molecular nanotechnology, a field of technology still in the very earliest, but has a lot of potentials. The desire of using technology to pursue such medical breakthrough to build different forms of respirocytes is still strong but challenges remain. Some of these are due to considerations of sufficient power at that molecular level, atomic-scale manipulation, immune reaction or toxicity, computation and communication.
How do Respirocytes work?
Respirocytes exchange gasses via molecular sorting rotors.?The rotors have specially shaped tips to catch particular types of molecules. Gas molecules are stored tightly in tanks. Each respirocyte has three types of rotors. One gathers oxygen at the lungs or in production before introduction to the body and releases it while traveling through the body. Another captures carbon dioxide while in the bloodstream and releases it at the lungs. The third takes in glucose from the bloodstream, which is burned in a reaction similar to cellular respiration in order to power the respirocyte.
Although, not that much progression has been seen with purely conceptual and hypothetical phase of development, similar research and development have progressed with other complementary innovative technologies.
For instance, artificial blood stored as a powder could revolutionise emergency medicine and provide trauma victims a better chance of survival. Researchers have created an artificial red blood cell that effectively?picks up oxygen in the lungs and delivers it to tissues throughout the body.?
Robot-assisted surgery or robotic surgery are any types of surgical procedures that are performed using robotic systems developed to try to overcome the limitations of pre-existing minimally-invasive surgical procedures and to enhance the capabilities of surgeons performing open surgery.
In the case of robotically assisted minimally-invasive surgery, instead of the surgeon directly moving the instruments, the surgeon uses one of two methods to perform dissection, hemostasis and resection, using a direct tele-manipulator, or through computer control.
In computer-controlled systems, the surgeon uses a computer system to relay control data and direct the robotic arms and its end-effectors, though these systems can also still use tele-manipulators for their input. One advantage of using the computerized method is that the surgeon does not have to be present on campus to perform the procedure, leading to the possibility for remote surgery and even AI-assisted or automated procedures.
Memory devices play an essential role in preventing any inconveniences in the robot-assisted surgery. The memory storage solutions can perform multiple functions based on the patient's physical record. They can also indicate specific information to measure calibration offsets indicating misalignment of the storage drive system, life of the data, and so on.
Conclusion
The various technologies making impact on the practice of medicine and the delivery of healthcare are growing and they are also improving in many ways, including accuracy and reliability, stability and efficacy, security with their respective systems also becoming more efficient in their output. It is cannot be over-emphasised that the regulatory authorities are encouraged to collaborate with research and development groups to ensure new and emerging technologies are regulated to ensure safety, quality and efficacy.
References
Chair - Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Priory Group | Mental Health Psychology Hospital director
1 年Great article, look forward to better #patientsafety & #patientexperience No doubt healthcare teams are ready to work smart