Health And Technology: Trends You Need To Know

Health And Technology: Trends You Need To Know

Just like a mobile phone or computer technology, healthcare-related technology has dramatically improved in the past 10 years. Already the health technology was a growing market, but recently it has exploded, due to extensive and non-invasive technology that aids productivity and performance. Here are some trends to keep an eye on:

Telemedicine

These days, telemedicine is a popular concept. Not only does it allow a doctor to evaluate a patient, whilst staying on a strict timeline, but it also helps avoid the transmission of viruses. While modern countries have embraced telemedicine because it allows decreased wait times and maintains an accurate diagnosis rate, third world countries are embracing telemedicine because it allows rural patients the opportunity to speak with an experienced physician that they may otherwise not be able to see. Of course, in third world countries, the bigger issue is the poor internet connection, but advances are being made to improve that. Right now though, telemedicine is experiencing rapid growth and while there are still some issues to work out, it’s largely popular and successful.

Telehealth is more than just online conversations with one’s doctors. It also includes the wearing of devices or using devices that can send health information back to the doctor, thus limiting hospital visits, whilst still ensuring a patient is healthy. Real-time monitoring of patients outside a hospital offers freedom for chronically ill patients that has never existed before now.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Healthcare

No, we’re not in the future where all of our healthcare is overseen by cold, faceless robots. But, AI devices in healthcare are being used more commonly for a variety of factors. AI machines can offer excellent care by working out a diagnosis through images and a highly specific algorithm. The FDA recently approved an AI diagnostic device that does just that by examining photos of a retina and diagnosing diseases. While the technology isn’t 100% accurate, it does give us a glimpse into the future.

Healthcare Clouds

Like telemedicine, having one's healthcare in the cloud wasn’t a common thought 10 years ago, and today it’s slowly being implemented. As doctors meet with hundreds of thousands of patients, paper filing systems are slowly being transitioned to the cloud. Utilizing the cloud allows for nearly unlimited data being stored by hospitals, which means that if a person moves, all of their medical records can be saved and sent along with them.

Because record-keeping falls under HIPAA compliance, using a secure cloud technology is actually safer and prevents a patient’s private information from being seen, as opposed to paper records. The problem arises with HIPAA and personal information when a doctor and patient have a confidential conversation through a video conference. Unfortunately, there is no way currently to guarantee that a video conversation is completely secure, therefore there are some potential issues using healthcare clouds exclusively for every patient’s personal information.

Chatbots

Nearly every large website and a lot of the smaller ones utilize chatbots to work with customers and give them advice, without having hundreds of live workers waiting for a potential chat. Hospitals and doctor’s offices are taking note of the process and working to implement it in a smaller, contained, HIPPA approved way.

Chatbots in healthcare would allow basic questions to be fielded, without requiring a triage nurse to give individualized advice to common questions. For instance, a chatbot in a pediatric doctor’s office could give advice on when to administer medicine for a child who has a fever. More in-depth advice of course would be given by a triage nurse, but a chatbot allows already overworked nurses the ability to focus on patients who need more care.

Like other forms of technological healthcare, chatbots need to be carefully monitored, to ensure that correct advice was given and to ensure that the vital patient confidentiality was followed. Yet, they do offer many opportunities to help in a limited manner.

In the next 10 years, technology in the healthcare field will only continue to grow and expand. While nobody thinks we’ll be seeing robot doctors just yet, technology does offer unique advances that can aid and assist many people, thus ensuring reliable healthcare for many.