The Future of Health­care: New Tech­nolo­gies Pow­ered by You

The cur­rent state of health­care glob­al­ly is com­plex. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had a dev­as­tat­ing impact on glob­al health, lay­ing bare the inad­e­qua­cies of health sys­tems. Health ser­vices in all regions are strug­gling to both tack­le COVID-19 and pro­vide peo­ple with vital care. The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) is work­ing with coun­tries to improve their pre­pared­ness for pan­demics and health emer­gen­cies, and to ensure that coun­tries work together.

At the same time, the health­care indus­try has also seen sig­nif­i­cant tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments, such as the use of telemed­i­cine, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and elec­tron­ic health records, which have improved patient out­comes and effi­cien­cy in health­care delivery.

Addi­tion­al­ly, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of health­care, such as the use of remote 5G tech­nol­o­gy, AI and wear­ables, can help off­set issues such as lack of access to basic ser­vices and staff shortages.

In this arti­cle, we will look at some of these new tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments in detail.

The new tech­nolo­gies help­ing us live better

There have been sev­er­al new tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments in health­care in recent years that are rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the way health­care is deliv­ered. Here are a few examples:

1. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)
   AI has the poten­tial to trans­form health­care by improv­ing patient out­comes, reduc­ing costs, and increas­ing effi­cien­cy. AI algo­rithms can be used to analyse large datasets to iden­ti­fy pat­terns and pre­dict health out­comes, enabling health­care providers to make more informed decisions.
2. Telemed­i­cine
   Telemed­i­cine uses telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to pro­vide remote clin­i­cal health­care ser­vices. This tech­nol­o­gy has become increas­ing­ly impor­tant dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as it has allowed patients to receive med­ical atten­tion from the com­fort of their homes.
3. Elec­tron­ic Health Records (EHRs)
   Elec­tron­ic health records allow health­care providers to store and share patient infor­ma­tion dig­i­tal­ly, improv­ing the qual­i­ty of care by pro­vid­ing access to com­plete and accu­rate infor­ma­tion about a patien­t’s med­ical history.
4. Wear­able devices
   Wear­able devices such as smart­watch­es and fit­ness track­ers are becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar and can pro­vide valu­able data to health­care providers. This data can be used to mon­i­tor patients remote­ly and pro­vide insights into their health and wellbeing.
5. 3D Print­ing
   3D print­ing tech­nol­o­gy is being used to cre­ate cus­tom med­ical implants and pros­thet­ics, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to cre­ate pre­cise and per­son­al­ized med­ical devices that can be tai­lored to an indi­vid­u­al’s needs.

Solv­ing poten­tial bot­tle­necks in the horizon

These new tech­nolo­gies hope to address sev­er­al bot­tle­necks in health­care. For exam­ple, wear­able tech­nolo­gies can help with remote mon­i­tor­ing of patients and improve access to health­care for those in remote or under­served areas. Telemed­i­cine can also improve access to health­care and reduce the need for in-person visits.

Remote mon­i­tor­ing tools can help with man­ag­ing chron­ic con­di­tions and reduc­ing hos­pi­tal read­mis­sions. Genome sequenc­ing can help with per­son­al­ized med­i­cine and more accu­rate diag­noses. Vir­tu­al real­i­ty can help with train­ing sur­geons and plan­ning surgeries.

The Inter­net of Med­ical Things (IoMT) can help with col­lect­ing and analysing data to improve patient out­comes. An arti­fi­cial pan­creas can help with man­ag­ing dia­betes. These tech­nolo­gies aim to improve access to health­care, reduce costs, and improve patient outcomes.

Is AI the future of healthcare?

Mor­dor Intel­li­gence, a lead­ing mar­ket intel­li­gence and advi­so­ry firm fore­casts health expen­di­ture will out­strip GDP growth over the next 15 years. Health spend­ing per capi­ta will grow at an aver­age annu­al rate of 2.7% and will reach 10.2% of GDP by 2030.

AI has the poten­tial to improve patient out­comes, reduce costs, and increase effi­cien­cy. AI can be used for tasks such as analysing med­ical images, pre­dict­ing patient out­comes, and devel­op­ing per­son­al­ized treat­ment plans. It can also help with admin­is­tra­tive tasks such as sched­ul­ing and man­ag­ing elec­tron­ic health records. AI is already being used in many areas of health­care and its use is expect­ed to con­tin­ue to grow.

Some of the poten­tial ways that AI is set to trans­form health­care include:

1. Pre­ci­sion medicine
   AI algo­rithms can analyse large amounts of patient data, includ­ing genet­ic and clin­i­cal data, to iden­ti­fy pat­terns and make pre­dic­tions about a patien­t’s health out­comes. This can help health­care providers tai­lor treat­ments to indi­vid­ual patients, improv­ing the effec­tive­ness of treat­ment and reduc­ing side effects.
2. Diag­no­sis and treatment
   AI can be used to analyse med­ical images, such as X‑rays and MRIs, to help health­care providers make more accu­rate diag­noses and devel­op per­son­al­ized treat­ment plans.
3. Drug devel­op­ment
   AI can be used to iden­ti­fy poten­tial drug can­di­dates more effi­cient­ly, reduc­ing the time and cost of drug development.
4. Oper­a­tional efficiency
   AI can be used to opti­mize hos­pi­tal oper­a­tions, such as staffing and sched­ul­ing, reduc­ing costs and improv­ing patient outcomes.

By 2025, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is expect­ed to encroach into health­care in such a way that elec­tron­ic records, wear­able sen­sors, the patients’ bio­log­i­cal lay­ers, and envi­ron­men­tal sen­sor data will con­tin­u­ous­ly be assessed against an entire cor­pus of med­ical lit­er­a­ture to pre­pare a patient to pre­vent a con­di­tion. It won’t be about treat­ing the dis­eases but pre­vent­ing them.

How­ev­er, there are also some chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with the use of AI in health­care, includ­ing eth­i­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry issues, data pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty con­cerns, and the need for appro­pri­ate train­ing and edu­ca­tion of health­care providers.

Prepar­ing for a new era of healthcare

The future of health­care will be patient-centred, empha­sis­ing the cre­ation of val­ue for patients rather than vol­ume. Big data, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and smart data man­age­ment will play key roles here, pow­er­ing the tech­nolo­gies that improve qual­i­ty of care, accel­er­ate patient turn­around times, and reduce oper­a­tional costs.

How­ev­er, a holis­tic approach among health­care providers will also be essen­tial, one that is pow­ered by a col­lab­o­ra­tive net­work that pro­motes the inte­gra­tion of skills and com­pe­ten­cies, as well as the abil­i­ty to devel­op high­ly effec­tive cross-functional teams for con­tin­u­ous improvement.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you pre­pare for the future of health­care, please feel free to get in touch with us.