Trends in Health and Healthcare Technology

Despite having a history that has been relatively slow to adopt advanced technologies, the healthcare industry is set to experience significant changes over the next few years. Many leading companies are redefining themselves with digital transformation applied to several aspects of their main functional areas with a client-oriented approach. These technologies are currently trending and expected to experience significant growth over the next few years.

Telehealth

Telehealth practice in the U.S has increased by a staggering 115% in the last ten years, and many physicians around the world have grown accustomed to distributing health-related services via electronic information and telecommunication tools. Telehealth is improving diagnosing and treatment by enabling patients to easily get access to specialists. Especially in the rural areas, it can mean the difference between having or not having an expert opinion in a case.

Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)

Various mobile applications and devices have come to play a crucial role in tracking and preventing chronic illnesses for many patients and their doctors. By combining Telemedicine and Telehealth technologies with IoT development, a new Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has emerged which includes the use of several wearables such as ECG and EKG monitors. IoMT also helps to measure other common medical conditions, such as glucose level, skin temperature, blood pressure readings.

Touchless Patient Identification

Government officials from many countries have required many industry leaders including the health industry to look for contactless biometric identification solutions. While biometric patient identification has proven to be effective for eliminating the chances of creating duplicate medical records and preventing medical identity theft, the demand for this technology has recently accelerated. Biometric identification platforms allow healthcare providers to accurately identify patients, and some hospitals in the U.S healthcare system have improved their overall revenue cycle and patient experiences since using technology such as RightPatient.

Cloud Application in Healthcare

A variety of cloud-based platforms are available for the sharing of large files and streamline workflows. Healthcare providers are trying to address the need to build out, run, and maintain their facility for the purpose of record keeping. Cloud-based software solutions are becoming an enticing choice for the healthcare providers as it allows them and their patients to get better access to records thus enabling them to streamline workflows more conveniently. For instance, federal law HIPAA requires healthcare providers to maintain and ensure the safekeeping of various records and adhere to the rules and regulations by following detailed guidelines; and coud-based HIPAA compliance software has proven successful for streamlining compliance management activities. HIPAA compliance software such as HIPAAReady has allowed healthcare providers to easily store and safely keep required documents and even seamlessly deploy training for their employees across the organization.

Asset Tracking Via Blockchains and AI

In the healthcare industry, hospital asset tracking can optimize operational costs. In recent years, many healthcare systems have adopted technology for managing and monitoring healthcare equipment and supplies to improve efficiency. Hospitals can enhance the optimization of medical waste and the efficient disposal of equipment and electronics by carefully monitoring the asset lifecycle. This lifecycle encompasses the stages of planning, acquiring, deploying, maintaining, and ultimately disposing of physical assets. There are a vast range of assets in a medical setting or healthcare, both physical and non-physical, which includes machinery, equipment, medication, medical waste, employees, computers, patient documents, and more. Managing these assets manually can be stressful. Cloud based asset tracking platforms with the application of block chains and artificial intelligence have allowed healthcare providers to easily manage their assets in a secure, efficient and affordable manner.

Visitor Tracking

Healthcare providers serve a vulnerable population, and this makes security to the facility more crucial. Whether it's the visitors who are upset over sick loved ones, patients who are recovering from an illness, or employees who have had a stressful day, the people at the continuum of care are usually vulnerable at a given moment. Healthcare providers also need to consider what would happen in the event of an emergency, such as an intruder or a troublemaker, that would create unnecessary problems to the people who are likely to have trouble reacting or following directions in these situations. Also, some medical centers are big enough to spread over the area of a few city blocks, housing various kinds of facilities such astesting laboratories, medical officers, urgent care centers, etc. These kinds of medical centers have several entry and exit points which makes it easier for troublemakers to enter the facility. When a small business decides to accept visitors, it doesn't generally create a big stir. However, if a hospital decides that guests are no longer welcome, it is likely to create more outrage. This makes visitor tracking more essential; and thankfully, with modern robust cloud-based visitor tracking systems, this process becomes much easier.

Data Science and Predictive Analytics

Working with patients with chronic diseases allows practitioners to gather a great deal of information, but discovering and compressing all available data into something actionable can be challenging. However, advancement in data science and predictive analytics has allowed physicians to view deeper insights. For instance, a physician can feed information derived from family history and ancestry into AI-based platforms to produce statistically supported profiles and provide treatments faster. Problems that are endemic to families, regions, and other population clusters can be identified by retrieving valuable data from sources about the surrounding environment.

Advancements in technology have clearly improved outcomes in the healthcare industry in terms of electronic integrations such as physician billing services as well as resource supply chains distributing medical equipment and items like nitrile gloves. These technologies offer incredible opportunities to provide better healthcare services to billions of people and help the healthcare system to keep up with the ever-increasing demand.