The US healthcare system happens to be facing a lot of challenges, such as rising costs, clinician shortages along with the need for enhanced efficiency as well as effectiveness. Digital healthcare can go ahead and at the same time also help address such challenges by way of leveraging technologies like telehealth, remote patient tracking, health apps, as well as AI solutions.
Significantly, digital healthcare can also enhance the access to care, specifically for those in the rural areas, by way of enabling remote delivery in terms of care through virtual platforms. Digital healthcare can also get rid of the clinician shortages by way of optimizing resource allocation in a more effective way, and hence enhancing the efficiency as well as streamlining processes, thereby leading to the cost savings while at the same time also maintaining or improving the level of care that is being offered to the patients.
Wearable technology, digital therapeutics, as well as remote patient monitoring- RPM are indeed pushing the transformation of healthcare. Figures from the GlobalData reveal that the value of digital therapeutics-concerning deals has surged by 129% between 2018 and 2023, with companion applications becoming an increasing priority when it comes to life science firms.
The future when it comes to digital health is more likely to involve advancements in precision medicine, GLP-1 drugs- medications that go on to help lower blood sugar levels as well as promote weight loss and also telehealth infrastructure.
AI will go ahead and play a key role in healthcare innovation, right from disease diagnosis and screening to drug discovery as well as development.
Telehealth will go on to continue to be instrumental when it comes to healthcare transformation, with the traditional providers as well as digital health companies building the necessary infrastructure in order to go ahead as well as meet the rising demand when it comes to care.
Wearables, mobile apps, as well as RPM
Wearable technology, such as smartwatches and sensors, can be integrated into healthcare in order to help meet the treatment demands and also enhance the patient outreach. These devices help with remote monitoring of patients’ health metrics, thereby enabling healthcare providers to go ahead and access real-time data and at the same time provide customized care.
Digital therapeutics- DTx as well as mobile apps are also being made use of in order to enhance the delivery as far as remote patient care and increase patient empowerment is concerned. These tools go on to offer the patients with access to self-management resources, customized treatment plans, and, at the same time, remote consultations, thereby improving their ability so as to manage their health conditions.
Meanwhile, the remote patient monitoring- RPM technologies go on to play a vital role in healthcare delivery, enabling the physicians to access health data in a remote way and also provide care sans the need for in-person visits. RPM devices, like wearable sensors, enable consistent tracking when it comes to patients’ health metrics, thereby elevating care quality and also convenience for patients.
Is AI going to be a major driver when it comes to medical device innovation?
According to the GlobalData’s Thematic Research: Medical Device Predictions 2024, the medical devices, pharmaceuticals, as well as the healthcare markets, which were slow to adopt the novel technologies, have gone on to see an increased activity in the last few years, with more companies going ahead and adopting AI as part of digital transformation strategies.
GlobalData anticipates that in the years to come, AI will be a major driver of healthcare innovation by way of several applications, as well as forecasts that the market pertaining to AI for the entire healthcare industry will touch $18.8 billion by 2027, which is again up from $4.8 billion in 2022.
It is well to be noted that AI is already being made use of across many different areas of medicine, and its usage is expected to rise all the more. Common uses are medical record data management, specifically with the increasing usage of electronic medical record- EMRÂ systems as well as the vast medical data collected; diagnostic imaging, specifically the use of AI algorithms analyzing the medical images like MRIs as well as CT scans; diagnostic and procedural AI assistants, like the chatbots which can go ahead and provide medical information; and also remote as well as robotic surgery, since the AI-assisted robotic systems can go on to enhance precision throughout the surgical procedures.
New as well as upcoming technology
Other upcoming technologies are 5G-enabled wearables, augmented reality- AR as well as blockchain cybersecurity.
5G technology happens to be all set to improve remote patient monitoring systems, helping with faster and more dependable data transmission.
Incorporating augmented reality- AR into the perspective of mobile health happens to be having the potential so as to meet the unmet needs when it comes to the mental health treatment, management of chronic pain, as well as stroke rehabilitation. AR can even go ahead and, at the same time, enhance the delivery of virtual therapies as well as go ahead and offer immersive experiences for the patients, thereby enhancing the outcome pertaining to the treatment.
AR can also go ahead in assisting the radiologists when it comes to reviewing the patient scans in order to identify the problems that the human eye alone can never be able to detect and in creating 3D digital twins in order to provide new perspectives, like in viewing patient organs without the requirement for X-rays or even the magnetic resonance imaging- MRI as well as in modeling the medical conditions.
Cybersecurity tools happen to be crucial when it comes to protecting the virtual care services and patients’ personal health data from the cyberattacks, and since the healthcare becomes increasingly digitized, thereby making sure that the security as well as privacy of patient information happen to be of utmost importance. Blockchain happens to have the capacity and potential to be used when it comes to hospital payments, patient information, clinical trials, medical billing as well as the inventory management.
