The healthcare industry has potential when it comes to investing in healthcare application development. There are many healthcare software development companies that have been developing healthcare application solutions for medical professionals, healthcare-based businesses and much more.
The digital healthcare market is expected to reach $206 billion by 2020. Many leading companies have been redefining their approaches with digital transformation, applied to their main functional areas with a customer-centric approach.
For businesses, it is pivotal to keep a check and eye on healthcare trends that have the potential to change the game for the healthcare industry. In this blog, I am going to highlight some of the major technology trends in healthcare that have been discussed at Med-Tech Innovation Expo, which you can explore in the forthcoming years.
While businesses tend to rely on proven systems, they are constantly looking for new ways that can boost performance and increase productivity through the means of technology. However, let’s proceed on to the healthcare technology trends that you can foresee in 2020.
Trend 1: Telemedicine
Evolution in telemedicine is one of the biggest sources of rapid changes in the US Healthcare System. In a country where access to the service providers is limited, telemedicine is increasingly proving to be transformative. In the urban areas, for the weaker communities, the waiting time has been increased from 18 days to 24 days since 2014, according to 2017 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times and Medicare and Medicaid Acceptance Rates.
Telemedicine has been improving the diagnosing and treatment by making it easier for patients to get access to specialists too.
In the graph below, you can easily see the growth of telemedicine patients for the last few years. There has been a larger expectancy for telemedicine patients in the forthcoming years.
There have been many healthcare development applications that have been dominating the telemedicine sector with several data exchange platforms and video chat platforms. But there is much more that you can do with telemedicine services apart from several online solutions. You can consult healthcare software development companies for healthcare solutions that can help in bridging the gap between hospitals and patients.
This will bring comforting care for patients who have been looking for affordable healthcare solutions.
For example, Hospitals have been able to reduce readmission rates by providing real-time monitoring of patients outside the hospital. Thanks to the advent of wearable devices, now it is normal for remote monitoring systems to now be included in a post-discharge plan for patients.
Trend 2: The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)
By 2017, nearly 60% of operations in the healthcare field had adopted IoT or IoMT systems, according to Frost and Sullivan. This trend has given rise to improvements in a patient’s healthcare experience to profitability. It has been estimated that around 20 to 30 billion IoMT devices have been expected to deploy by 2020.
With the arrival of new delivery methods, practitioners will have many interesting options for providing care in a more effective manner as there is an estimation for the market size of IoT devices to be crossing $136 Billion in 2021.
The major challenge that IoMT and IoT enabled devices will face is the effective use of communication along with connectivity issues that can probe to potential security threats that can be addressed as indicated by a report from the Ponemon Institute’s Sixth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy and Security of Healthcare Data that showed that 89% of healthcare operations had been the subjects of at least one data breach.
Trend 3: Cloud Computing in Healthcare
Cloud Computing has been amplifying the needs of the sharing of large files within the private, public or hybrid clouds. Healthcare based businesses have been trying to address the needs to build out, run and maintain infrastructure for record-keeping needs. In such a scenario, Cloud Computing has been the right fit for digital technology in healthcare.
Patients and healthcare providers both tend to get better access to records through cloud-based solutions that have made the process more convenient. These telemedicine applications, place a greater demand for synchronous and asynchronous messaging systems.
For live video consultations, it also creates a need to deploy WAN connections that are speedy, secure and stable.
Healthcare Organizations have to be compliant with HIPAA Compliance and General Data Regulation Protection for electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) for securing messages, audio, video, and emails based on healthcare information.
In terms of Cloud-Computing Solutions, Hosted solutions typically offer more flexibility and lower costs whereas Hybrid solutions provide some of the best benefits of cloud computing in healthcare, and they often permit more portability.
Trend 4: AR/VR/MR in Healthcare:
Augmented and Virtual Reality have created more advances in the field of healthcare. From educating students about new procedures to planning procedures for advanced healthcare solutions, AR and VR are going from strength to strength in terms of advanced healthcare solutions for chronic ailments.
Augmented reality systems in healthcare offer one of the most innovative solutions and options. By rendering 3D information in a real-world scenario, AR permits practitioners and doctors to stay grounded and calm in actual procedures while having access to all the data available through other emerging technologies. Students can use overlays to access information in an interface where they can quickly explore. Doctors can compare data to what they’re seeing in the real world in order to make diagnoses and plan for procedures. Healthcare holds the potential of becoming one of the essential influences on the future of AR. You can always look out for healthcare application development solutions at cost-effective prices.
Trend 5: Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare
This is one of the most talked-about technologies that have the potential to change the way practitioners and doctors operate medical ailments. Developing Artificial Intelligence machines that can process information and provide decision-making data in the same way as a human does has given rise to an innovative technology solution. AI applications can help in improving the speed and accuracy of the diagnosis process. Analytics can also help in identifying developing concerns that will allow practitioners to look at the possible approaches for early treatment.
Machine learning algorithms can also be utilized to explore chemical and biological interactions during the drug discovery process, bringing drugs faster to market for consumption.
One of the instances shows that the FDA has recently approved the first AI-based diagnostic device, a system that scans for eye disease by examining photos of the retina. High-quality images are uploaded, and the algorithm then proceeds to check for possible indications of diabetic retinopathy. The disorder was correctly identified by the software in 87% of cases, and it correctly identified individuals without the disease 90% of the time.
The potential of AI is immense in the healthcare industry. There is a need to achieve high-end healthcare services through AI integrated systems.
Trend 6: Chatbots
Dealing with routine queries using an AI-enabled system can help organizations realize cost-saving. You can utilize smart bots in a digital assistant role that allows practitioners to keep better track of contacts, offer appointments more readily and easily make changes.
A chatbot can be utilized to provide friendly reminders. By connecting with other technologies, such as analytics and AI, the assistant can even warn about potential drug interactions.
A popular implementation can be seen with a project at UCLA that has combined chatbot technologies with AI systems to create a Virtual Interventional Radiologist (VIR). It makes evidence-based responses to FAQs quickly available to physicians by implementing IBM Watson’s cognitive technologies and Natural Language processing methods. This allows the questions to be read and answered in an intuitive manner, making the whole process simpler, faster and more useful for doctors.
Chatbots are already revolutionizing the world and it has been expected that it will become a big part of the healthcare industry too. An automated system will be seen as a replacement for the expert opinion and it will be subject to the same rules in compliance with HIPAA and GDPR to feature highly in healthcare-related solutions.
Trend 7: Data Science and Predictive Analysis
Improvements in Data Science and Predictive Analysis has made it possible for practitioners to look for deeper insights. Through deeper insights, you can work on actionable data. Data can be analyzed and scanned to improve efficiency within healthcare organizations.
Analytics is another field of why synergies can be achieved. With greater inflows of data from IoMT devices, data scientists can construct more detailed models.
Trend 8: Blockchain
A great way to improve availability and integrity is through distributing transaction records via a peer to peer system with a shared digital ledger. Interoperability is expected to move drastically with the arrival of blockchain in healthcare.
For example, Issues pertaining to drug supply and counterfeiting can be addressed by seeing that all transactions are logged onto a blockchain-based system. At the organizational level, this can lead to significant savings.
Are you ready for these transitioning healthcare technology trends?
The healthcare industry is disrupted by various emerging technologies. There is an outbreak for healthcare solutions that have been optimized and worked upon for the desired set of the target audiences.
The above-listed healthcare technology trends are expected to rule 2020. For businesses based on healthcare, it is important to keep abreast of all the latest happenings and trends in the healthcare industry.
You can also customize healthcare solutions for your project based on the trends discussed above.
Nice information about healthcare technology trends. your explanation way easy to understand. Thanks for sharing this post, it is a very helpful article.
There has been a high demand for custom medicine and growing pressure to reduce healthcare costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significantly incredible impact on healthcare digitalization. Therefore, it is expected that more healthcare providers will lean towards modern technologies in the upcoming years. Hospitals, health systems, and patients continued to embrace evolutions in technology in healthcare this year while maintaining steady industry growth and adaptations to new challenges.