9. Universal Adoption of Telehealth
The broad diversity, universality, and increase in digitized communication channels have begun to affect the healthcare industry. Telehealth has emerged as a new means of transmitting medical information. It involves using the Internet, videoconferencing, streaming services, and other communication technologies for the remote provision of healthcare services, including AI-augmented health telemonitoring and conversational AI chatbots. Telehealth also encompasses long-distance education for patients and medical specialists.
Telehealth has already gained universal recognition and become standard practice since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Advanced clinics are already virtually consulting their patients. This type of communication will gain absolute regulatory approval and displace traditional in-house consultations in the coming years.
- China has developed a national program to introduce telehealth in 70% of public hospitals by 2023.
- The U.S. is also among telemedicine pioneers. Its government plans to create more off-site options in the years to come to reduce the maintenance costs of medical facilities and hence the cost of healthcare services.
- Other advanced countries are also turning their heads towards telehealth and developing their own projects, keeping in mind local needs and peculiarities.
The introduction of 5G wireless will also open more opportunities for the rapid growth and universal adoption of telehealth in the next few years.
10. VR, Augmented, and Mixed Reality in Healthcare
One of the latest trends in healthcare information technology: Computer-generated or augmented reality promises tremendous improvements to medical diagnosis and education.
Augmented Medical Education and Decision-making
With virtual reality solutions, a person is placed in computer-rendered or fully simulated surroundings. This can help medical students to feel integrated with virtual situations and locations, similar to what they may face in reality, and practice their skills without visiting hospitals or dealing with actual patients.
With augmented reality solutions, a computer-rendered layer of additional information or virtual objects is added to the real world. Students or care providers can use augmented reality to access information and reports while working with patients or without leaving their current operations, in a hands-free mode, via voice command, or have supportive data appear automatically.
Digital Twin Technology in Healthcare
Mixed reality associates objects in the computer-generated virtuality with objects in real-life environments, making it possible for you to simultaneously manipulate both types (so-called creation of a digital twin). Another angle of this technology is building perfectly compliant virtual copies of real-life objects in order to test these “digital twins” within a virtually configured environment.
This method is unparalleled when it’s necessary to approbate projected medical devices, biocompatible materials, or prostheses. When it comes to designing and engineering in medical tech, the prototyping process can become faster and cheaper.
With digital twin technology, it’s not necessary to create a tangible sample/prototype to be tested in the lab. Instead, medical engineers can create a geometrically and physically accurate virtual model of an object and test it out in a virtually simulated environment.
This method can also be helpful when medical professionals need to perform remote surgery or other types of distant operations with the help of remotely managed healthcare equipment. Basically, the digital twin method can help save time and cost of developing complex medical products, predict and fix their drawbacks, and improve the time-to-market metric.