HIE Edition Sep 2021

The sole purpose of the healthcare industry is to improve the quality of life, and the stakeholders will not hesitate to adopt anything that fulfills the motive. This article will guide you through the healthcare industry’s role and significant technological advancements.

What is the Role of Technology in Healthcare?

The role of technology is endless when the healthcare industry is explored, and it opens the door to multiple hidden opportunities one can grab. Technology plays a pivotal role in improving the efficiency of the processes within the healthcare industry.

With the help of technology, patients can receive the treatment they deserve in painless and most comfortable form. The user experience is taking over the healthcare industry, and it’s all because of technological intervention.

A detailed report below discusses the technological advancements that have solved the burning problems of the industry.

5 Ingenious Technology in healthcare trends

Technological innovations are incredibly fascinating. Let’s look at all the potential innovations that can transform the healthcare industry in the upcoming decade.

1.     AI-Driven Systems

Artificial intelligence has affected multiple industries and made things better for them. In the healthcare industry, the need for AI-driven processes has increased after the outbreak of COVID-19.

Some of the fantastic AI interventions in the healthcare industry include

• Not only in the faster development of vaccines, but AI helps analyze the temperature of a large crowd with the help of machine integration. The AI cameras can immediately identify the persons not wearing masks and intervene accordingly.
• AI technology is highly efficient in analyzing the results of tests like MRI, CT, or even conducting data mining on bioinformatics databases. The information processing and drug simulation become faster with the help of AI, and it gives rise to newer drugs for treatment.
• Several apps consist of AI to help people sort their mental health issues. The survey, chats, and symptoms efficiently guide the user to the right path for making them feel better.
• NLP, along with AI technology, helps in self-diagnosis, and this has come out as one of the best healthcare trends in the pandemic. Virtual reality also plays a vital role in helping patients diagnose their ailments.

2.     Remote Healthcare Support During COVID-19

When the entire world was bound by lockdown and social distancing was mandatory, remote healthcare support played a significant role in combating the crisis for professionals and healthcare services.

Some fantastic benefits of bringing remote healthcare into the scenario are

• It helps follow strict instructions like social distancing without compromising the patient’s health. Telemedicine has also made it easier to discuss the problems with a doctor and receive a prescription.
• Many telemedicine apps were video conferencing features that can give a realistic experience of meeting the doctor and getting the necessary support from them.
• Data privacy has been a significant concern in the healthcare industry, and remote healthcare comes with cloud hosting to make it less fussy. The data of each patient is saved virtually, and nobody can steal it or misuse it.

3.     Emergence of Wearables

Wearables are not about the entertainment industry alone. The Healthcare industry has seen a ten-fold improvement after introducing wearables that track basic metrics related to health.

Below are some exciting advances in wearables that work for the healthcare industry.

• Smart devices can track heartbeat and oxygen levels and warn you about any abnormal signs in your body. Some devices have special sensors to detect specific metrics that can help you understand the data about blood vitals. Intelligent hearing devices and smart patches are slowly becoming popular amongst patients.
• Smart pills are one of the most significant IoT inventions that make edible electronic pills enter the body and judge the parameters accordingly. This information is valuable for diagnosing any severe disease and taking quick steps for its treatment.

4.     Strengthening Data Privacy

As was mentioned earlier, data privacy is an ever-growing concern in the healthcare industry, and new technologies are here to solve it.

• The data storage is now available through cloud computing, and digital retrieval of data can be tracked easily. Hence, it becomes safer to move towards digital transformation to ensure that data privacy is not breached.
• Many healthcare professionals use Skype and FaceTime to consult with patients, and these communications are fully encrypted from end to end. Strict regulatory norms are present to safeguard a patient from virtual data privacy breaches.
• High-end technologies have a digital locker system that is accessible only to limited people, and this increases the accountability to protect the data at any cost.

5.     Personalized Medicine

The concept of personalized medicine is slowly surfacing, and people are opting for it in many countries and hospitals. When data privacy concerns are in place, it becomes easier for people to opt for precision medicine openly.

• After completing the human genome project, the concept of precision medicine has become easy to apply in real life. Through technological intervention, one can easily find out the genetic reason behind the occurrence of a problem.
• Personalized medicine has eliminated the idea of “one solution fits all” and moving toward better healthcare services.
• Once the entire mapping is completed, the doctor can easily use it as a reference in multiple databases and diagnose the problem.

So much advancement in data has also given rise to unicorns in healthcare technology, and they are crucial factors in changing the dynamics of the industry.

HealthTech Start-Ups Changing the Dynamics

Healthcare technology start-ups are solely based on the latest inventions that can support and solve the problem at a more extensive level.

Some popular start-ups that are doing fantastic work in this field are

• Wheel – Makes doctor-patient interaction simpler
• CareRev – Helps in finding flexible work opportunities in the healthcare industry.
• Path – A pioneer in mental health support application
• Tempus – Has expertise in personalized medicine for cancer treatment

Many things in the technological domain of healthcare are unexplored, but many impactful technologies are being used regularly. Apart from technologies that benefit professionals and patients, several other applications keep the industry organized.

E-health records, hospital tags, hospital management portals, remote health monitoring systems, and laboratory report management and distribution systems are a few more.

Also read: Impact of artificial intelligence on medical billing and coding