February 22nd, 2022 | Updated on January 23rd, 2023
With 2021 well behind us, COVID-19 still lingers around the world. Of all the sectors that have been completely changed by the effects of a global pandemic, health care arguably has changed the most.
With significant development in technology and methods vital to support a peaking demand for health care access, the healthcare industry has evolved in new ways.
Some of these trends include telehealth services, online medicine, VR, and AR technology, so it’s difficult not to notice that more than 80% of healthcare systems are planning to increase their investment in these digital healthcare trends, and with good reason.
Massive demand for personalised medicine and scalping pressure to reduce healthcare costs are key factors that directly impact these unavoidable measures.
The pandemic has had a major impact on healthcare digitisation, so it’s estimated that more healthcare professionals will lean towards these technologies in 2022. Here’s how.
Big Data In Healthcare
The healthcare sector has come a long way to reach the point where it is right now – medical imaging, telemedicine, robots, and more. All this has been made possible thanks to the latest tech advancement.
And big data is one of those disruptors that have completely transformed the industry. According to research, big data is expected to grow faster in healthcare than in other industries, and with a good reason.
Thanks to Big Data and data analytics, it is possible to diagnose the disease quickly and accurately, cure individual patients, prevent epidemics and cut costs.
The Big Data trends are changing the healthcare sectors as we know them today. We even expect medical systems in the future to employ devices that will monitor patients’ well being and help experts provide immediate high-quality care.
Global big data in the healthcare market is estimated to reach $34.26 billion by 2022. These figures will be mostly motivated by ongoing investments in practice management tools, health records, and workforce management solutions
Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Healthcare
Ai is reshaping slowly but surely reshaping healthcare, and its use is becoming a reality in various specialties and medical fields.
AI, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) enable medical specialists to identify needs and solutions faster with greater accuracy using data patterns to make more informed decisions. But that’s not all. The usefulness of AI in healthcare extends to:
- Patient’s medication adherence tracking
- Reduction in clinician’s error
- High diagnostic accuracy
- Improved personal data security
- Better quality of care
- Reliable monitoring of patient’s health data
- Automatic diagnostic report generation
- Lower operational expenditures
AI can analyse massive amounts of data stored by the healthcare system in the form of clinical research trials, images, and medical claims and identify patterns and insights often untraceable by manual human skillset.
Medical providers often struggle to stay updated with the latest medical advances while conferring patient-centered care. Biomedical data and EHRs curated by medical units can be quickly scanned by machine learning technologies to provide immediate, reliable answers to clinicians.
Telehealth is a fast-moving field that is just beginning to find a more mainstream place in modern healthcare. Since then, healthcare has always been delivered in person.
With the advent of smartphones and the ability to video call someone, healthcare can be provided in some instances without ever meeting the patient face-to-face.
While online consultation and treatment might seem like it would only apply to people who don’t struggle with severe health issues or elders, ICUs and other hospital floors are now leveraging video systems where a team of healthcare specialists can remotely monitor and provide advanced healthcare services without having those professionals in-house.
Video Game Treatment
As the pandemic continues to wipe the last gleam of hope, the demand for effective mental health tech is mounting. One of the latest transformations in the field is video game treatment.
Last year the US Food and Drug Administration authorized the marketing of the first video game for children with ADHD and other similar health issues.
Games like EndeavorRX are meant to help ADHD patients between 8 and 12 years to improve their attention problems.
Together with prescribed medications, educational programs, and clinician-directed therapy, this solution is expected to better overall wellbeing in ADHD patients.
Mobile-Assisted Therapy
It’s estimated that smartphone-assisted therapy will become increasingly popular by 2022. Many mobile apps and chat bots are massively utilised to analyse mental health patients’ speech patterns and voices to indicate any signs of emotional instability.
These technological transformations are not providing solutions to patients, rather providing assistance and redirecting the data to healthcare professionals.
POC Technology
Point of care technology is designed to be used where patient care is provided. For instance, these technologies can be implemented where a patient’s identification bracelet and medications are scanned.
POC technology then checks with the digital system that the patient and their medications match and proves that the medication was administered.
Some patient lab tests can now be done in-house, providing direct results that allow medics to know lab data within minutes of drawing blood.
POC technologies can also be integrated with vital sign machines to allow healthcare providers to scan the patient and transmit collected data.
Some medical facilities are now using iPads or iPhones at the bedside, allowing nurses to check patient data and communicate with the medical team while they’re with the patient.
AR Mixed With Reality In Healthcare
Augmented reality isn’t new, and it seems that now it can be used in a variety of healthcare settings. One of the most popular forms of this tech is the use of mixed reality headsets like Microsoft HoloLens by surgeons.
Apparently, surgeries can be enriched by this heads-up technology, but it can be a remote and collaborative effort for training purposes.
However, AR isn’t just limited to headsets and real-time monitoring. This technology relies heavily on AI and specialised sensors to function, which means it requires vast amounts of data to be perfectly functional.
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Information provided by Newszii.com does in no way substitute for a qualified medical opinion. Any text, videos, or any other material provided by us should be considered general information only. Any health-related information may vary from person to person, hence we advise you to consult specialists for more information.
