Emerging Technologies in Healthcare – There are still some healthcare facilities without enough doctors and nurses to meet their staffing requirements even during normal times. This is an issue that may become worse during a pandemic.
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Emerging Technologies in Healthcare
Smart pill sensors are helping ensure patients take their medications as prescribed. Digital twins are being used to explore the effects of drugs on human organ systems and help avoid expensive and time-consuming animal testing.
Technologies in Clinical Practice
Emerging technologies are enabling healthcare providers to streamline their operations and improve patient outcomes. Examples include data interoperability, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, robotics, 3D printing, bio-printing, and nanotechnology.
With all this new technology clinicians need support in keeping up. In order to provide competent care, they need to be able to use these new tech equipment with knowledge and confidence.
Smartphones have become hand-held diagnostic kits for a host of conditions. Portable blood pressure cuffs and contact lenses that sense blood glucose are becoming commonplace.
Some companies are even developing brain-computer interfaces that help patients control their prostheses with their minds.
Augmented reality and virtual reality are increasingly being used in healthcare settings. Surgeons can use a headset like Microsoft Hololens to see heads-up information during surgery. This technology can reduce their dependence on medical references and free them to focus on the patient.
It can also enable telemedicine sessions and reduce the burden of clinical documentation for clinicians. In fact, a healthcare company has already developed an application that allows payers and providers to streamline prior authorization with a single tool.
Artificial Intelligence AI in Healthcare
Artificial intelligence has become a part of everyday life, thanks to advances in machine learning.
The technology has been used to diagnose pandemic illness and treat cancer patients. It can help doctors and healthcare staff make more accurate decisions, improve patient outcomes and cut costs.
AI in healthcare is not yet as widespread as it could be, mainly because the technology is new. It requires approval by regulators, integration with EHR systems, training for clinicians and integrating into day-to-day clinical practice.
Some health tech companies are working on addressing these challenges. AI can be used for telemedicine and remote consultations to help connect with more patients and improve care.
It can also track specific health data and make it easier to access for healthcare providers. This includes analyzing complex unstructured information and connecting data points that have been separated in different databases.
Examples include a glucose monitoring system, which helps diabetics to stay healthy by tracking blood sugar levels. It can detect abnormalities and alert doctors immediately. This can reduce complications such as hypoglycemia, which is an emergency requiring immediate medical intervention.
Robotics and Automation in Healthcare
As a healthcare industry facing staffing shortages, it’s crucial that hospitals use technology to streamline in-patient processes and focus on patient care. From telemedicine and data interoperability to augmented reality, blockchain, and AI, these technologies are helping hospitals become more efficient.
A robotic medical assistant can help nurses monitor several patients at once and automatically enter the results into patient electronic health records.
It can also sterilize equipment and perform other cleaning tasks to minimize infection risks. Robotic surgery is also being used more and more to help doctors perform procedures, especially for cancer patients.
Blockchain tech provides a way to store and secure patient data online. It’s a system of currently unhackable cryptography that keeps a distributed ledger of vast amounts of information, cutting out the middleman and saving costs for healthcare providers and patients alike.
This technology could also be useful in reducing fraud, which costs Medicare about $60 billion per year. It’s also being utilized by some companies to create healthcare robots, like Honda’s Hoko Assist, which helps elderly patients.
3D Printing in Healthcare
The emergence of 3D printing is reshaping the healthcare industry. It enables the production of medical devices that are cheaper and faster to produce. It also provides a platform for creating customized products for specific patients. This can help reduce their risk of infection and improve their comfort level.
The technology is being used to create patient-specific models for pre-operation planning and improving surgical outcomes. It is also being used to make medical equipment, prosthetics and bone reconstruction devices.
The technology has also been used to print skin grafts for burn victims. Scientists are now developing a new 3D printer that is 50 times faster than previous ones.
Another exciting development in the field of medical 3D printing is the use of living cells to produce artificial organs.
Scientists are also working on a system that can automatically monitor the health of patients with diabetes and send data to their doctors. It can also deliver a range of medications to the patients. This technology could change the way healthcare is administered in the future and help make it more affordable.
Precision Medicine
These technologies are based on the principle that one can tailor medical care to the individual patient. In cancer treatment, precision medicine uses genetic testing to identify a tumor’s specific genes and proteins.
It also identifies how those gene and protein changes affect the body’s response to pharmaceutical drugs, a practice called pharmacogenetics.
Other precision medicine applications involve developing devices and treatments that target particular tissues or diseases. These include targeted drug therapies (like the use of a drug to attack a specific part of a cancer cell) and immunotherapy, which helps a person’s own immune system fight a disease, like cancer.
Telemedicine and Mobile Health
With telemedicine, patients can get medical consultations from a distance. It is also a great way for doctors to monitor a patient’s progress remotely. Some telemedicine platforms allow psychologists to provide therapy to their patients through video communication devices like Skype.
Using telemedicine, primary care physicians can connect with specialists located in different locations. This helps to ensure that a patient receives the best possible healthcare. It can help to reduce the cost of healthcare for people in rural areas.
Telemedicine can also help with medication management. Some systems can track when a patient has taken their medications and send alerts if they forget to take them. This can significantly reduce the risk of hospital readmissions and improve overall health.
Notable Takeaways
Emerging technologies in healthcare are transforming the way medical professionals diagnose and treat patients. By utilizing artificial intelligence, virtual reality, data analytics, and other digital tools, healthcare organizations can improve care while reducing costs and improving efficiency.
As technology advances, so too will the opportunities for innovation in the medical field. With continued investment in research and development, medical advances will continue to improve the quality of care and patient outcomes.