Healthcare is among the most responsive and dynamic fields. The professionals in this discipline are usually in the lookout for technologies and trends that promise to revolutionize the delivery of medical services. In the recent past, healthcare institutions have been adopting disruptive technologies. Thanks to these technologies, medical services are being delivered in an efficient fashion. As they enter the future, healthcare providers should expect to witness further changes in medical technologies. Artificial intelligence, wearable medical devices and cloud computing are among the trends and technologies that will transform healthcare.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is among the technologies that are likely to gain increasing adoption in healthcare. Once it is fully adopted, AI will improve healthcare in a number of different ways. Some of the expected outcomes of AI include robot-assisted surgery, visual nursing assistance, administrative workflow and fraud detection (Kalis, Collier & Fu, 2018). As they embrace AI, healthcare providers will be able to perform a wider range of surgeries, address the shortage of medical professionals such as nurses, and allow healthcare institutions to modernize their systems and infrastructure. It is also expected that AI will help practitioners to minimize errors in the administration of medication (Kalis, Collier & Fu, 2018). These errors are among the factors that hamper the delivery of safe care. Therefore, as they adopt AI, medical practitioners will be better placed to enhance the wellbeing of their patients. Clinical trials and cybersecurity are other areas of healthcare where AI could be applied (Kalis, Collier & Fu, 2018). In clinical trials, AI could be used to obtain data and conduct analyses. Practitioners will be able to gain insights that are then used to develop more effective interventions.
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The benefits mentioned above are the primary basis for the prediction that AI is among the technologies that will define the future of healthcare. In addition to these benefits, it is projected that AI will deliver cost savings for medical institutions. By incorporating AI into their operations, the institutions in the US are expected to save as much as $150 billion by 2026 (Kalis, Collier & Fu, 2018). The advances that are being made in the development of AI are another reason for the confidence that this is among the technologies which will drive healthcare into the future. Various technology companies are investing huge amounts in refining AI.
Wearable Medical Devices
AI is not the only technology that will enable medical practitioners and institutions to offer quality care in a cost-effective fashion. Wearable medical devices are yet another technology which is expected to redefine the delivery of care. Essentially, these are devices that patients carry with them for the purpose of measuring such vitals as blood pressure, oxygen concentration and heart rate. By enabling the practitioners to assess these vitals, wearable devices make it possible for the practitioners to keep a close eye on patients. For example, the physicians treating patients with heart conditions can use the devices to determine moments when the patients require urgent care. While wearable devices hold immense promise, there are some concerns that will need to be addressed before they are adopted fully. The fear of privacy and security breaches is among these concerns (Kim et al., 2015). Hackers can exploit the vulnerabilities in these devices to expose the patients to harm or steal information. The main benefit of wearable devices is that they allow practitioners to apply personalized approaches and interventions (Zheng et al., 2013). Today, the care that practitioners and institutions offer is rather standard. As more and more institutions embrace this technology, they will be able to develop unique and personalized approaches that account for the different needs of patients.
Cloud Computing
The third trend which is changing how healthcare institutions provide care is cloud computing. Essentially, cloud computing is concerned with taking data storage and manipulation online. In past years, medical service providers used paper-based systems for the purpose of storing and managing patient data. These systems were replaced by new approaches that allow the providers to leverage the power of technology. The main drawback of these approaches is that they were rather costly and required facilities to establish in-house information management capabilities and personnel. Cloud computing aims to spare providers of the hassle of storing and managing data. Such companies as Google, IBM and Amazon have developed reliable cloud computing solutions. For example, Amazon’s Azure enables facilities to store huge amounts of information that can be accessed remotely from a wide range of devices. The benefits of cloud computing are as numerous as they are varied. Among these benefits is improved quality of care (Morrow, 2016). Cost savings and enhanced efficiency are other benefits that cloud computing delivers. Since it spares providers of the need to set up their own data storage and management infrastructure, cloud computing helps the providers to keep operational costs down. Given the many benefits that it providers, it can be expected that cloud computing will experience accelerated adoption among healthcare institutions. In conclusion, if they wish to be at the cutting edge of modern healthcare, medical service providers should embrace cloud computing, artificial intelligence and wearable medical devices.
References
Kalis, B., Collier, M., & Fu, R. (2018). 10 Promising AI applications in health care. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved June 29, 2018 from
https://hbr.org/2018/05/10-promising-ai-applications-in-health-care
Kim, Y., Lee, W., Raghunathan, A., Raghunathan, V., & Jha, N. K. (2015). Chapter 8-Reliability and security of implantable and wearable medical devices. In Implantable Biomedical microsystems. Design principles and applications. William Andrew.
Morrow, W. (2018). How cloud computing is revolutionizing healthcare? Huffington Post. Retrieved June 29, 2018 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-morrow/how-cloud-computing-is-re_b_11675810.html
Zheng, J., Shen, Y., Zhang, Z., Wu, T., Zhang, G., & Lu, H. (2013). Emerging wearable Medical devices towards personalized healthcare. BodyNets '13 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Body Area Networks, 427-431.
