5 Future Tech Trends in Healthcare

By using technology, we are able to turn the entire healthcare industry from a reactive episodic model to one that is proactive and puts patients at the center of their care. These technology trends have completely revolutionized the healthcare industry. 

According to Orthogonal, the healthcare industry is embracing technologies that allow people to share data from devices with others, making it easier for medical professionals to diagnose and treat patients remotely.

As technology in the healthcare industry continues to evolve, we can see a number of technology trends plunging into the healthcare industry for rendering enhanced medical services in order to improve the health of the patients.

Big enterprises can be seen investing in different technologies to improve healthcare services. Google, for instance, is collaborating with health delivery networks to build prediction models from big data to warn clinicians of high-risk conditions, such as sepsis and heart failure.

Here, in this blog, I have spoken about 5 healthcare trends in 2020 that will transform the healthcare industry. Let’s read in detail about these emerging trends in healthcare technology.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is one of the top healthcare trends that is revolutionizing the healthcare industry. AI- driven tools help doctors to make clinical decisions faster. For instance, one tool helps in examinations that need to be reviewed by a radiologist before being performed. The radiologist usually takes a lot of time without using AI. But, with AI, they can perform much faster.

Using the tool saves the radiologist from making a new assessment each time. With this tool, the radiologist can simply confirm "yes" or "no" to tell whether the tool's suggestion is correct or not. If the algorithm is right, then the radiologist proceeds further to the next case and in case the algorithm is wrong, then it can be trained better so that it makes accurate decisions in future.

Another tool, Aidoc, uses AI to look for abnormalities in scans and is already being used commercially in over 100 sites. AI-enabled tools such as these help healthcare staff in performing medical functions more effectively and in less time. Surely, AI is one of the top healthcare trends in 2020. 

According to the American Cancer Society, a high proportion of mammograms yield false results, leading to 1 in 2 healthy women being told they have cancer. The use of AI is enabling review and translation of mammograms 30 times faster with 99% accuracy, reducing the need for unnecessary biopsies.

Robotic Process Automation

No wonder, RPA is one of the top healthcare trends in 2020. Scheduling patient appointments is one of the major benefits of RPA in healthcare. Scheduling online appointments to meet the doctor is a common process that every patient has to perform.  While scheduling online appointments, the healthcare providers are required to make records of personal information, diagnosis, and insurance details in the registration process. 

According to the statistics available in McKinsey Quarterly, 36% of the healthcare tasks — mostly, managerial and back-office — are amenable to automation.

Keeping a track record of a huge number of patients is a tough task to handle. Moreover, the patient appointments need to be aligned with the schedule and availability of the doctors in hospitals. 

Robotic Process Automation techniques help healthcare organizations in resolving problems related to scheduling patient appointments. RPA-driven bots scan patient data and then schedule appointments according to the type of medical treatment required, diagnosis, location, doctor availability, and other criterias. These bots can also let patients know about the unavailability of doctors for their appointment.

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Virtual Reality

Next in the list is Virtual Reality. Undoubtedly, Virtual Reality is one of the top healthcare trends in 2020 that will transform the entire healthcare system. The incredible benefits of virtual reality in the healthcare industry just can’t be ignored.  Virtual technology is being used by medical students to learn and perform mock-surgeries. It’s also being used in performing physical therapy so as to help people recover from injury or trauma.

Hospital admissions decreased by 16% in a study of heart patients who received messages based on their condition to an app. All thanks to using these healthcare trends in 2020!

The effectiveness of this tech on healthcare is likely going to improve as medical professionals are investing their time to explore its applications. Undoubtedly, Virtual Reality is having a more significant impact on healthcare than any other technological advancement which makes it one of the emerging trends in healthcare technology.

Immediate At-Home Assistance

It becomes difficult to seek medical assistance if you’re disabled, a senior with low mobility, or at home alone in serious physical pain. It won’t be possible for you to drive yourself to the hospital. Thus, calling the ambulance might be unnecessary for the symptoms you’re experiencing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25% of older adults fall every year, and 20% of those falls are severe.

68% of physicians say that at-home diagnostic testing will help to drive better outcomes for patients.

Immediate at-home assistance is one the future trends in healthcare technology. Companies like Heal let people get an appointment scheduled with a licensed and certified doctor at their place of residence.

You can know about the other advancements of assistive technology. The technology can detect falls and automatically request immediate assistance for seniors who may have been injured due to a fall. Amazing but true! It wouldn’t be wrong to say that these future healthcare trends in healthcare technology have proved to be a boon for patients as they now don’t have to travel while they are unwell.

Laser Printed Human Organs

This is something amazing and shocking too. Use of laser printed human organs is one of the future trends in healthcare technology which will prove very beneficial for the entire healthcare industry.

Prellis Biologics is a company that’s dedicated to “solving the shortage of human organs and tissues for transplantation.” Every single day, about 20 people die waiting for a life-saving transplant that never happened. This information is according to the American Transplant Foundation.

By using this laser printing technology, Prellis Biologics has managed to mimic the human cell and replicate human organs. This advanced technology is still partly experimental, but future advancements are expected in the coming future. Soon medical professionals might be able to print a new human organ as easily as prescribing medication.

The Bottomline

All of these innovations are exciting healthcare trends in 2020 that you can see. By now, I am pretty sure that you have got a clear idea of the emerging trends in the healthcare industry. These incredible future trends in healthcare technology are promising and can bring a lot of changes in the way patients are treated now.

74% of people believe that sharing lifestyle information becomes more palatable if it is seen as a way to help physicians treat people more effectively, with some people in this group being willing to share dietary and exercise information if they could receive tailored information back.

Nothing better than technology can help patients with the sharing of health information. It's only through these technology trends that patients can get medical recommendations best suited to them. Undoubtedly, these trends will improve the present healthcare conditions and make all the processes more efficient and faster.