15 January 2022
The healthcare industry has steadily been creating new technologies to improve medicine and help people live longer, healthier lives. But the past two years has seen a surge in investment for health technology in response to Covid-19.
Significantly, the HIMSS Future of Healthcare Report found that 80% of healthcare providers intend to increase investment in technology and digital solutions across the next five years. We take a look at some of the main trends paving the way for health tech in 2022.
Telemedicine
Remote consultations shot up for obvious reasons over the pandemic but there is good reason to continue them, even when taking Covid out of the equation. Looking internationally, secluded areas of China and India have long struggled with healthcare due to a shortage of doctors. Remote consultations have dramatically improved access to medical treatment for people living in these areas. And telemedicine is becoming more sophisticated with new wearable technologies, which enable healthcare practitioners to monitor things like heart rate and blood oxygen levels in realtime. We are seeing this taken a step further in the establishment of ‘virtual hospital wards’; a concept which oversees the treatment of different patients at their homes using a centralised communication infrastructure.
In the coming year, we expect to see the development of telemedicine into new areas such as follow-up care. Things like robots and smart technology will be integral to this trend in caring for patients who have had a major operation or illness. For example, cameras that detect someone has had a fall in their home or sensors that detect medical intervention is needed.
A crucial factor in telemedicine’s success will be winning over public trust and it’s important to acknowledge that in certain circumstances, in-person consultations will always be preferable. Moving forward, we expect to see a hybrid way of carry out patient consultations that leans into the advantages of technology, whilst understanding the importance of human interaction.
AI and Machine Learning
AI has proven to be extremely useful in making sense of complex medical data. This not only covers image data such as X-rays, CT and MRI scans, but other forms of data from vaccine roll-outs to handwritten doctors notes. AI is also being used alongside human workers. So, a surgeon can use computer-vision cameras in theatre, which recognise and relay information about what they’re seeing inside the patient. In the coming years we expect to see AI paving the way for preventative medicine, which aims to predict when and where an illness will happen and take action before it occurs. For example, AI has the potential to predict how lifestyle factors will cause health problems in different populations, and even where a contagious disease outbreak will occur.
Extended Reality
Extended reality or XR is being used successfully across training and treatment of medicine. The term encapsulates virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). These all involve headsets that either place us in a virtual environment or add virtual elements to the real world around us. VR headsets are a great tool to train doctors by allowing them to see intimately into the human body without using cadavers or putting patients at risk. For treatment, VR is increasingly used to help children with autism learn about social skills. In the mental health sector, patients with anxiety are using VR to work through their fears in a non-threatening environment.
Personalised Medicine
Medicine has historically been taught with a one-size-fits-all method, but new advances in AI, digital twins and genomics are allowing us to move towards more personalised medicine. For example, we are beginning to see personalised diabetes monitoring devices, which use blood sugar readings and other factors to provide personalised advice on how to manage the illness, including recommendations for diet and exercise. Progression in the study of genomics is also significant in creating personalised medicine and has led to new treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s and arthritis.
Digital Twins
A digital twin essentially does what it says on the tin by creating models that simulate any process. The concept of digital twins has huge potential in the healthcare industry in the form of a ‘virtual patient’. These simulations of patients can be used to test drugs without the obvious danger to human life and also cut down the time it takes to get drugs into general use. While the prospect of an entire virtual patient appears to be a way off, digital twins of organs look closer on the horizon. Virtual organs would allow medical practitioners to experiment with treatments without endangering living patients.
It’s clear that the pandemic has accelerated digital healthcare, and advances in trends like AI, digital twins and extended reality reveal an exciting future ahead for healthcare technology.