Digital Transformation in Healthcare – Innovations, Tendencies, and Benefits

Technology has played a huge role in evolving businesses and industries, though few industries have been more than proactive in terms of adapting to the changes in technology whereas few took a while due to their complex operating procedures and business structure.

But, soon the healthcare industry is expected to experience remarkable revolutionization in upcoming years,  a lot of businesses are being more digital-friendly, adopting the latest technologies to their functional aspects.

It’s a widespread fact that getting accustomed to emerging healthcare technologies would definitely play a major role in the long run especially when they are planning the future of the businesses.

Latest Healthcare Technology: The Industry Response to Advanced Technologies

For a long healthcare industry is researching the various methods to treat patients virtually, probe, identify and forestall diseases, enhance hospitals efficiency, and easily resolve the security and lack of appropriate tech talent.

Basically, the industry is looking to minimize the cost of services. A key way to decrease the cost would be to initiate personalized medicine, which improves patient care.

Technology is regarded as one of the key factors which have added value to customer-based care, offering the following services:

• Virtual patient observations
• Virtual testing and diagnosing via devices that transmit a patient’s health history and information
• Individual treatment program
• Being Proactive in the detection of maladies, viruses, and diseases

Telemedicine

Telemedicine symbolizes Automation led healthcare. It is proclaimed as the biggest factor in evolving the American Healthcare Industry.

This actually has the key potential that facilitated the medical aid and services to a quite large number of people who were living in the countryside where the medical aid was inaccessible.

Telemedicine apps had also comforted urban citizens by saving their time in lobbies or reception because of the absence of healthcare professionals.

Ongoing Healthcare Technology Evolutions in Telemedicine:

Has also Enhanced the Medical Application

Virtual interaction has existed, and hence the aforementioned way did not keep any stone unturned to enhance the quality of interaction among diseased and healthcare professionals.

Hence, we can always predict that the application will be the thing of the future and will become more intuitive and simplified.

Healthcare will not Remain a Central Hub

More healthcare workers are leaving the huge conventional medical centers and are choosing smaller practices in not so conventional communities.

It’s perceived that the fresh joiners and individuals will let the trend of decentralization carry on for a long time.

Strengthening Cyber security

Technology and cyber security are two sides of one coin. Healthcare operations have been vulnerable to cybercrime, so medical data security is always the priority.

The Internet of the Healthcare Industry

Numerous devices and mobile applications have been a leading force in identifying, assessing, and preventing life-threatening illnesses for patients and their respective doctors.

By amalgamation of IoT development, telemedicine and telehealth technologies, a new Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has surfaced.

This concept includes using a number of wearables, including ECG and EKG monitors. A lot of common medical measurements is also quite easy to detect, such as skin temperature, glucose level, and blood pressure readings.

By the year 2017, approximately 60% of operations in the medical arena had chosen IoT or IoMT systems, as per Frost & Sullivan.

The aforementioned pattern has increased the overall result of improvements in every aspect, be it a patient experience to financial gains.

Between 20 and 30 billion IoMT devices are predicted to be in by 2020. By 2021, the business for IoT devices in healthcare is predicted to touch $136 billion, Allied Market Research reported.

With the commencement of the latest delivery procedures, like the initial smart pill approved in 2017 by the FDA, practitioners will definitely have quite a number of exciting choices and offer for facilitating care in an improved manner.

Offering persistent and impressive communication with many health care IoT equipment is among the major hurdle that the sector has confronted.

Businesses still regularly use their own proprietary attributes in order to interact with devices, and this can create issues, especially when fetching or extracting heavy data from the servers.

Connection issues are also still prevalent, as the accumulation of data by microcontrollers and devices can be interrupted by several factors in the neighboring milieu.

The Buffering process of local microcontrollers has to be more vigorous to evade disruption.

Cloud Platforms in Healthcare

There are public, private, and cloud-based platforms that are well equipped for the sharing of big files. Health care organizations are working to fulfill the necessity to make, execute and manage infrastructure for managing the record-keeping requirements. Hence, cloud computing has been a priority for digital technologies in the healthcare industry.

Patients and healthcare suppliers will have easy access to the records via these latest cloud-based solutions, which also simplify the appointment and discussion process.

This telemedicine software, though, put up higher demand on synchronous and asynchronous messaging systems.

The necessity to amalgamate video for live interactions between the healthcare professionals and the patient also reflects the need to deploy WAN connections that are fast, protected, and consistent.

HIPAA compliance has been a complication in this environment. Enterprises usually avoid embracing cloud computing to an extent because of the unfavourable reviews stated by regulations regarding electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI).

As per them facilitating virtual doctor appointments makes it challenging to fetch all ePHI data within a structured form to ensure the protection of the data.

Different ways of protecting messages, audio, video, and emails all these have to be structured properly to confirm full compliance with HIPAA.

Another issue is compliance associated with the General Data Protection Regulation, which poses a vulnerability threat to the personal data of all EU residents—which of course comprises ePHI.

The HIPAA regulation includes quite a range of activities and on top of that, it also comprises a few that have not been addressed in the act directly.

Electronic signatures that are being used in online forms regularly are a known example of the aforesaid.

These have not been stated in the regulation but comprising businesses need to make sure that they are using HIPAA-compliant e-signature services as these will be the services that will be responsible for the accumulation of data that is deemed as PHI for authorization and authentication procedures.

In terms of cons or negatives of cloud computing in the industry, there are several, to administer or control something a mechanism has to be given or allowed more responsibilities for releasing software updates, controls over security protocols, and sustaining hardware.

Hosted methods characteristically allow more variability and decrease costs. On the contrary, the ongoing change in control may be an issue, specifically for organizations with clear HIPAA complications.

Big Data is the Game-Changer in Healthcare Trends

Info-led prescription is the key practice that has been pursued by the industry. As per a research done by Datavant, exceeding almost 3.95 trillion GB of healthcare information is accumulated in a year. There have been predictions stated by the experts that this figure will be two-fold every couple of years.

Heaps of data are accumulated and generated via various healthcare references and sources. The information can be often compressed and channelized into the execution of the learned by predictive analytical intellection.

Below are the key benefits of adopting big data in healthcare:

• Minimize the average of prescription faults
• Proactively structuring plans to prevent illness 
• Minimizing the delay due to the lack of health professionals 
• Prevents the re-admittance of patients, enhances and ensures caring for a longer period
• Optimum use of deep insights generated by Big Data individuals could be fruitful to diagnose and cure health problems in much lesser time
• Via predictive analytics, healthcare professionals will be able to get a clear picture of an individual’s expected health situation using the information received from the families existing records.

The Amalgamation of Reality and its Upcoming Future Trends

Digital health’s revolutionary discoveries such as AR and VR are the key flag bearers of technology progression in the healthcare industry.

As per the research and predictions VR and assisted reality in the healthcare market will be able to surpass the mind-numbing $5.1 billion by 2025.

Virtual environments are being tested and said to be really helpful in curing pains, handling stress and post-traumatic effects, and for that matter also surmounting motor deficiencies.

VR caters to access to processes and visual participation that are generally inaccessible or unachievable at the time of therapy.

Different uses of virtual reality comprise setting up and strategize complicated surgeries, healthcare professional’s training and enhancing their skills, let the users know the benefits of regular exercise, and facilitating the sessions to treat emotional health as well.

For eg, there are Neuro Scientists practicing VR to equip and aid their patients confronting memory issues. These healthcare professionals use Virtual Reality headphones to review and judge the remembrances of individuals.

The Individual went through a brain graft can always take part in VR goals in VR that creates an almost world like environ.

Professional scientists can see and record how a brain transmits waves and try to make better interpretations on what’s going on in the brain.

The supplemented reality has been a major factor in evolving healthcare. By imposing a layer of selective information on real-world visuals, AR screens facilitate surgeons an accession to life-Redeeming information at the moment of the emergency process.

Healthcare trainees can use 3D models whenever they have to research or investigate a subject in quick succession. AR also allows doctors to meticulously examine the symptoms.

At times when patients are not able to clearly express their symptoms, AR would work as a blessing to comprehend and describe the ongoing symptoms.

Artificial Intelligence has a Key Role in the Health Industry

AI coupled and machine learning combo commits to bringing out multiple benefits to the healthcare sector. These two offers more effective and advanced ways to examine diseases, structure and plan treatment, discover drugs, research, observe and forecast pandemic calamities proactively, and increase operational facilities in case of emergencies.

By 2030, the systems powered by AI will be among the most used systems in the personalized practice of medicine, and further, after 5 years, AI will start switching human healthcare professionals.

As an integral part of aided AI, the image classification procedure assists the healthcare professional to perform supreme quality diagnostics within quick succession.

Nowadays different experts like x-ray experts etc. have to manually administer and work on classifying the image and their respective descriptions.

In the upcoming years, this will be fully automated and taken care of by Artificial Intelligence.

With risk groups, the sooner the nursing higher the prospects of saving a life. Using Artificial Intelligence, risk individuals can be identified and treated sooner.

Mankind often confronts different pandemics and advanced technologies in the medical industry help in nipping these pandemics in bud before it outbreaks.

Artificial intelligence played a major contribution as it administered, controlled, and predicted pandemic rightly in Africa. Drones fetch information from the prescribed area.

Doctors get to examine the DNA of the specific mosquitos and are able to make a prediction to the point as to when and in which region the next pandemic might take place.

Future progressions in Artificial Intelligence would be able to propel the healthcare industry to use more AI-equipped infrastructure systems, and it will open up new opportunities.

For e.g. classification of different reports in quick succession barring any human involvement.

AI also offers to compose a particular dosage of medicine keeping the medical history reports of an individual and better treatment according to the patient’s data, like tests and if patients are prone to certain chemical reactions.

As per the predictions, the individualized treatment led by AI is considered to get in the business in 2030 for the general public.

Blockchain, the Future of the Health Industry

Blockchain resolves the issue of ease of access, mobility, and authenticity of reports generated even in complicated conditions.

There has been always a threat of losing or compromising medical records which have been accumulated in medical centres so the Blockchain has been aptly equipped to resolve this issue.

With the help of a certain procedure that involves a password, the diseased gets to choose who actually will have complete access to his records.

If a situation arises that another specialist needs to have a look at the patient’s record for suggestions, so in this situation, the patient can always allow certain people via a platform that is being used commonly it is a giant leap in terms of individual’s medical history privacy.

Blockchain systems are designed and structured to prove competent at the time whenever a sufferer is visiting a different country.

In case of any health emergency, the doctors there can review the medical history and reports in quick succession without waiting for the patient to do the same.

Here is an example to comprehend the use of advanced technology in the healthcare industry,

American SimplyVitalHealth created a procedure that permits the interchange of sufferers’ medical history and records among various clinics.

The business has also revealed that they are researching and working to make a more advanced system that has an extensive framework.

Conclusion

Advanced healthcare technologies will always be the ground for the digitized metamorphosis of business in this healthcare industry.

The position of digital transformation in the healthcare industry in the upcoming years is deemed to be quite promising. 

As it goes for any business, the aim is to design products and services that improve the lives of people or enhance the existing infrastructure which is used by people. Technology can assist and push us to achieve this goal.