A Wealth of Health

The field of healthtech has been gaining momentum at an incredible rate. Especially over the past few years, due to a variety of groundbreaking technological advancements which are shaping the industry as rapidly as it grows.

5 Healthtech Game Changers:

1. Remote Healthcare

During the early months of the pandemic, remote healthcare consultations skyrocketed from 0.1% to 43.5%. Deloitte analysts have concluded that most of us are happy with remote consultations and will continue using them.

Telemedicine is likely to branch out into other healthcare applications such as mental health and follow-up care. Robotic assistance, IoT and machine learning will team up to provide alerts for professionals when their intervention is required.

2. Extended Reality (XR)

XR is an umbrella term which covers Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). VR headsets have been used for years to train doctors and surgeons, allowing them to understand the complex mechanisms within the human body, without putting lives at risk or using up limited medical cadaver resources. It is also used in the treatment of developmental and mental disorders; training those with autism’s social skills and facilitating Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) by creating safe environments where patients can work through their fears.

More recently, AR solutions are highly prevalent such as Accuvein which detects veins via heat signatures while highlighting them. Microsoft’s Hololens is used in surgical theaters, providing real time information during surgeries to both the surgeon and those observing the surgery so they can collaborate more effectively.

3. AI Led Machine Learning

The healthcare sector contains a vast amount of data which is a challenge to sift through to find relevant information pertaining to a specific patient. AI is capable of properly structuring this data while reading through all pertinent information far more efficiently than any human.

Medical professionals can now use AR computer vision with cameras that recognize and relay information. AI chatbots are capable of handling initial patient meetings and refer them to doctors who specialize in the problems they are facing, freeing up large amounts of time. Preventative medicine will also be boosted by AI which will analyze a host of data to predict likely health issues and make recommendations to prevent these.

4. Digital Twins

Real world data is used to create a virtual digitized twin of a patient, this was initially proposed to get drugs from clinical trials into the hands of patients at a faster rate. While these may take further research until they can be fully realized, digital copies of organs will be achieved far faster; allowing doctors to experiment with different pathologies without putting lives at risk.

The incredible potential impact of Digital Twin technology could create treatments faster, in a more cost-effective way. This is seen as one of the most crucial 2022 healthtech trends.

5. New Medical Delivery Systems

Ultrasound medical delivery is becoming an increasingly adopted form of drug ingestion. It is a highly efficient, fast-acting form of drug delivery which has been seeing new applications at an accelerated rate.

Ultrasound Nicotine Delivery Systems (UNDS) is a novel approach to helping people with nicotine cessation. A hydrogel is used to slowly deliver nicotine into the patient’s bloodstream so that they do not feel adverse reactions when they stop inhaling nicotine. This new method has been patented by Dubai based Medad Technology who are poised to launch this treatment in the UAE. They have also invested $100 million into performing further clinical trials over the next 3 years.

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