The future of healthcare lies in innovations and healthcare workers embracing them. These innovations could help streamline healthcare systems, improve the doctor-patient relationship, and provide faster, more efficient, and more affordable solutions for diseases that continue to threaten our communities.
But as the saying goes, one has to be a master of their own house. If you’re a medical professional, here are the healthcare technologies you should check out and possibly integrate into your practice:
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence or AI engines can mitigate the risk of medical scenarios in three crucial ways:
- Automate reminders: An AI-based app can follow a patient’s personalised treatment plan and automatically remind patients to take their medication within a specific period.
- Deliver dosage recommendations: Depending on each patient’s body chemistry and other health and environmental factors, an AI engine can deliver a personalised dosage of medications.
- Discover people at high risk: By utilising data and automating processes, artificial intelligence can play an integral role in identifying people who need medical intervention. Google’s DeepMind, for instance, created an AI tool to spot breast cancer cases among pre-selected data sets. The AI technology could also help send alerts to medical staff who can create immediate care plans.
AI in healthcare is still in its early phase, but it shows promise to reshape the industry for the better.
Mobile apps and websites
Health-based mobile apps are great for engaging patients, giving them a sense of control while making the process easier for them and the medical staff. Mobile apps can be developed to request physician appointments, upload medical history, get test results promptly, and track blood sugar of diabetic patients.
The use of this technology relieves some pressure on the medical support staff, such as the receptionist and billing personnel. In turn, it leads to a significant reduction in operational costs.
Similarly, functional and easy-to-navigate websites can greatly impact patient engagement and retention. If you run a private practice, a website can work both as your marketing tool and the patients’ portal.
Patients should easily log into your website to fill out patient forms, upload medical history, and send other documents needed for consultation or follow-up. But of course, having a website collecting personal data means your practice or organisation has to go the extra mile to keep the platform safe and secure. Fortunately, network penetration testing and other cybersecurity technologies have improved as well.
Virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is projected to be a 16 billion industry by 2022, and there’s no reason healthcare can’t jump in on its popularity. Whether it’s leveraging VR to provide an immersive facility tour experience for patients or using the technology to help patients cope with pain, opportunities in VR tech are abundant.
Healthcare is an industry in which the “clients” are often anxious. Having a virtual tour of a facility or procedure can greatly help calm the nerves of future patients and enhance the overall patient experience.
You can now adopt mobile apps, websites, and virtual reality to engage the modern-day patient. Keep artificial technology and other developing innovations in radar to improve patient care and provide better medical solutions. This way, you stay relevant and effective in treating patients in the coming years.
