Across the globe, healthcare systems are struggling to manage the increased demand placed upon them by aging populations. In most of the world, healthcare funding is a limited resource, meaning efficiency and cost-effectiveness have become core tenets of modern medicine.
Put together, this means healthcare systems face the difficult challenge of expanding to treat a population with changing demographics, while reducing costs, juggling recruitment challenges, and budgets that cannot exponentially expand.
At first glance, this seems a gargantuan task, but could innovative technology offer a solution? Ambitious tech pioneers believe they might just have the answers, paving the way to an optimistic medical future.
Innovative Solutions To Community Care
Virtual consultations are very much on the healthcare agenda, since being piloted by the NHS in 2017. The scheme allowed for a 24-hour service, offering GP consultations via smartphone or video link. This type of service injects some of the long-overdue convenience we experience in all other aspects of our lives — from shopping to banking — into our personal health.
In fact, fresh approaches to preventative medicine have huge cost-saving potential but they do require good public health education across the board — and this is something smartphone apps are helping to drive home.
The benefits of health apps and personal care gadgets are twofold. Firstly, they make healthcare communication more efficient, enabling patients to access services remotely and easing staffing pressures. Secondly, they encourage a vested interest in personal health management. Electronics consultancy Plextek says the use of such devices could cut costs per patient by up to 60 percent.
Notable examples of how tech is already seeping into healthcare include the pioneering use of Amazon Echo for diabetes care. Virtual assistants are being tested right now to ensure they are able to work in line with privacy laws. The aim is to introduce this cost-reducing aide into healthcare applications for use both in the home and in a clinical setting.=
We are currently in the midst of a virtual consulting surge which shows no sign of slowing.
Artificial Intelligence In Diagnostics
There are many types of AI: since its advent in 1956, the term is used broadly to refer to anything a computer can do more quickly or efficiently than a human being. One particular AI variant — known as “deep learning” — now trains software to recognize patterns, using distinct layers. This tech has great potential in clinical diagnosis, since it can isolate symptom layers and comorbidity concerns more efficiently than the human brain.
These algorithmic solutions could reduce staffing costs significantly over the coming decades. The best news is that algorithms are more than a budgeting tool — they can also improve healthcare outcomes.
The value of preventative medicine is immense. If doctors can use a predictive analytic model to identify which hospitalized patients are most likely to enter a life-threatening critical condition tomorrow, they can work proactively to prevent emergencies today. This is particularly valuable since prevention increases survival rates by three to four times, compared with reactive treatments (even where those treatments are successful).
Promoting Quality Of Life With Virtual And Augmented Reality
Virtual reality technology looks set to revolutionize healthcare in a number of areas, including mental health rehabilitation, pain management, physical therapy, and staff training. VR works at the interface between mental and physical healthcare, another emerging field of preventative medicine. From helping staff to empathize with patients’ needs to helping patients learn to manage their illness, there are many possibilities when it comes to the potential for this technology.
Augmented reality, meanwhile, offers a broad range of practical, everyday uses, from maps showing the nearest public defibrillators to Google Glass, a technology enabling doctors to truly see from the patient’s perspective. AccuVein even allows nurses to map the veins in a patient’s body, offering great potential for surgical developments.
Big Data Will Transform Disease Control And Worker Efficiency
Blockchain technology is a big talking point in the health data sector. With the mass storage of health data comes the potential for cyber security compromises. Under HIPAA laws, mishandling data can bring significant fines.
Blockchain is a technology that allows impenetrable data sets to be shared securely between network systems. Its main benefit lies in the potential to virtually eliminate data breaches, but the tech also allows for more efficient and imaginative use of data.
“We’re on the verge of a data-sharing revolution in healthcare,” Professor Adam Beaumont, visiting professor of cyber security at the University of Leeds, told The Telegraph. “Imagine, for example, how many X-rays a radiologist will see in their lifetime. A machine could absorb this experience in minutes: the data and notes of every radiologist on the planet.”
Improving Regulatory Efficiency
Regulation is central to the medical industry. It is a necessary obstacle to speedy innovation, global communication, and cross-border treatments. But technology looks set to streamline this process, improving the efficiency of medical innovation itself.
Life science consulting firm Alacrita is an an example of a company on the front line here, advising medical technology pioneers and helping them to overcome regulatory hurdles. Technology drives progress, and efficient regulatory strategy ensures progress is safe and sustainable.
“Regulation underpins all areas of medtech and for the last eight years, ABHI has been working with the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and European partners to ensure that this next generation of regulation for devices is considered the ‘gold standard’ globally,” Philip Kennedy, chairman of the Association of British Healthcare Industries, wrote in the New Statesman. “For our industry, this modernises the original rules, bringing together best practices from existing Commission guidance.”
Global growth will be integral to healthcare success in the 21st century. By 2050, the number people aged over 60 living in developing countries will rise dramatically. This means working across borders will be vital in the coming years. And efficient medical technology regulation will be at the heart of this journey.
Jessica Foreman is a freelance writer who works within the life sciences sector. This article was written on behalf of Alacrita.