As we live in a digital world, it’s no surprise that the healthcare business follows suit. It’s clear that technology is transforming healthcare forever, from wearables’ data-driven insights, Healthcare IT Solution to smartphone applications that help manage chronic illnesses.
Online medicine, telemedicine services, patient engagement technology, and robotic process automation are the most recent healthcare technology advancements. Nearly 80% of healthcare systems aim to expand their investment in these digital healthcare trends during the next five years, according to the 2021 Future of Healthcare Report.
The high demand for personalized medicine and the rising demand to reduce healthcare costs are the leading causes influencing these inevitable steps. Also, because the Covid-19 pandemic has had such a significant influence on healthcare digitalization, more healthcare practitioners are anticipated to use these technologies in the future years.
The technology and life sciences industries are exciting since they constantly change and innovate. Advancements achieved today are critical for tomorrow’s medicine, as healthcare continues to bring new prospects. With one of the most inventive years in history already behind us, the year 2023 is set to keep the momentum going. Companies must be inventive, develop their digital product lines, and handle new topline healthcare industry trends to stay competitive in this shifting environment.
During the first nine months of 2021, healthcare trades were hot. According to Rock Health, they raised $21.3 billion in venture capital across 541 deals, shattering the previous $14.6 billion achieved in 2020.
Need of an Hour: Digital Healthcare
The need of the hour is spending artificial Intelligence (AI), Advanced Analytics, Data Analysis, Cyber Security, Integrated Mobility Management, and Omni-Channel Marketing. Wearable technology, quantum computing, 3-D printing of organs, and robots are all hot topics. Specifically, AI will simplify processes, improve accuracy, and give a 360-degree perspective of patients’ concerns.
Globally, digital health adoption is progressing, as seen by nations in northern Europe such as Sweden, Norway, and Latvia, where patients use their phones to access electronic medical records (EMRs). In China, even minor provinces employ kiosks to enter patient data for the hospital admission. EMR adoption is 96% in the United States. India is doing a brilliant job, but there is still a lot more.
As a result, technology plays a significant role in pharma and healthcare. It is an area where a lot of money is being invested. Companies that do not have a technological foundation will go out of business.
What Are The Future Trends In Healthcare?
The healthcare sector has seen massive growth and transformation over the past few years. Here are six trends in healthcare that will stay for long and that companies in the sector should understand to take a competitive advantage.
1. Data is the New Healthcare Currency
Data will be the new money in pharma and healthcare, not medications. There has been a significant shift toward preventive and predictive treatments.
Pharma companies use digital business models to gather, collect, and analyze data to get their pharmaceuticals into devices. Companies worldwide, including India, are putting effort into patient engagement. The fact is that pharma companies can no longer depend on their old medication model. Companies were continually trying to pitch to physicians, and the patient was never considered. The business strategy for pharma companies must now focus on how to serve patients in situations when data is crucial, and it is a significant shift.
Many people see pharmaceutical and medical technology companies adopting ways to improve production, supply chains, and patient solutions. The pharmaceutical sector is increasingly providing information to patients about medicine, its distribution, and the disease. Patients do not need to rely on doctors as they are already well informed on their cell phones through the internet. Apps like symptom checkers, access to the best physicians and hospitals, online diagnostic tests, and medications have changed the medical sector.
The healthcare platform is disrupted as more preventative and wellness technology is developed. Pharma may look at tech transfers for good patient outcomes because med-tech start-ups are booming with innovation.
2. Advanced Cognitive Technologies
The advent of big data in healthcare provides a great potential to improve screening and treatment quality. However, harnessing the value of this data will need innovative concepts. One such solution is cognitive technology in healthcare. These options help doctors find customized treatment by instantly obtaining all of the available information on similar patients by integrating individual medical information with larger-scale statistics and scientific data.
The cognitive technology approach to healthcare examines and comprehends all structured and unstructured data linked to the patient’s condition. These technologies can comprehend words and phrases in the same manner. They enable systems to extract all relevant data from a medical record or health-monitoring equipment.
This technique combines data, such as the number of daily steps counted by a mobile app, test results stored at the hospital, food habits, and data from prior surgeries or procedures listed in the digital medical record. It also enables clinicians to see the connections between different complex data types.
Access to this data via cognitive technologies aids the clinical decision-making process by allowing clinicians to compare similar situations and propose the treatment options, therapies, dosages, and so on for each patient.
3. Smart Healthcare
With rising healthcare expenses and increasing healthcare demands, smart hospitals can generate better efficiency, enhance treatment quality, and give access to more people than before.
The healthcare system is under significant pressure, and these pressures are expected to worsen as the world’s population grows and ages. The WHO forecasts that 18 million healthcare professionals will be needed in ten years. With nations spending an average of 10% of their GDP on healthcare, governments worldwide seek methods to minimize expenses from blowing out of control without compromising treatment quality.
Digital hospitals are developing as ‘critical hubs,’ with the ability to generate better efficiency, enhance the quality of care, and enable access to more people than ever before as part of increasingly interconnected healthcare networks, from linked ambulances to remote care in the home.
Smart hospitals use technology and data to streamline processes in running a hospital, including asset management, information exchange, staff, patient engagement, and patient care. A smart hospital can provide previously inaccessible data. It results from a significant emphasis on data, particularly in collecting, integrating, and achieving insights through AI/ML and quick and convenient data access.
4. Rise of Quantified Self
The quantified self, or the concept of knowing more about oneself via self-tracking, is increasing. It is mainly due to the widespread availability of mobile technology and applications that allow you to track even the most minor information about your body and health and make sense of it. It’s never been easier without smartphones, an exercise tracker, fuel bands, a fitness app, among other devices on the market.
The patient, not the other way around, is in charge of the quantified self. In today’s mobile health environment, smartphone applications are becoming more and more common; nevertheless, statistics reveal that not all apps are created equally. Only 26% of health applications are used just once, and 74% are quit within the first ten uses.
According to a Consumer Health Information Corporation survey, 79.9% of respondents chose an app to evaluate the health data they were logging and give customized suggestions. It represents the quantified self trend perfectly: the most popular applications are those that take the reams of data being collected and transform it into something the patient can understand. It’s history if the application is too complex or can’t manage the data you’re collecting.
5. Use of Digital Technology
How is Digital Technology used in Healthcare?
Digital technologies of all forms have become vital resources in general practice. Their use is increasing, with the fast integration of technology in various sectors that support primary care and essential public health responsibilities during the last decade. Searching for medical information resources, enabling clinical support, assessing the quality of treatment, mapping and monitoring the spread of infectious illnesses, and tracking medicine and vaccine supplies are frequent applications of digital technology.
Implementing clinical support systems and referral systems into primary health care can aid in the coordination and continuity of treatment across primary, secondary, severe, and elderly care systems. Electronic health records save data on a person’s health, medical problems, prescriptions, and significant events shared for referrals and rapid clinical decision-making.
It can improve the patient journey with the use of digital technology. It can lower unnecessary hospitalizations and urgent care visits by preventing duplication of care processes and improving communication between providers. In health emergencies, ensuring that the general population has access to rapid, qualified advice over the phone can save lives.
6. Cloud Technology Advancing Data Exchange
Cloud technologies that provide more data storage and processing resources maintained by external service providers are increasingly recognized for improving safety, efficiency, and quality of healthcare services. However, cloud adoption has been inconsistent among digital health companies because the technology might conflict with established quality assurance and data integrity, security, and service reliability processes. These include privacy and data governance concerns, data model lock-in, data silos, and unexpected consequences for work habits and organizational performance.
As cloud-based services do not need more hardware (such as servers required for on-premises systems) and can be installed remotely, they allow for quick deployment and upscaling across various settings (provided that appropriate infrastructure exists). As a result, cloud-based technologies have unique advantages over on-premises systems, especially flexible installation and scale-up of services with unpredictable demand (COVID-19) and cross-organizational data integration. It needs to be viewed if it can sustain these advantages.
The Bottom Line
These new healthcare technologies rapidly gain popularity and eventually take over the market. Companies want software developers and engineers who will deliver the future into the present by implementing these vital digital health solutions.
Check Online Platform for Physicians
EvinceDev can help you move to value-based and patient-centered healthcare by selecting competent developers since the future of healthcare technologies begins now. We offer various services, from process consulting and design to implementation and maintenance.
Our professional developers have worked on various healthcare solutions, including a patient portal, a consumer health app, facility, and patient management platforms. We can offer you in building cutting-edge Healthcare IT Solutions for evaluating health information, identifying at-risk patients, and creating preventative treatments. With our healthcare solutions, you’ll be able to make informed decisions based on the most up-to-date patient data.