The Next Phase for Healthcare Industry is Rapid Innovation – A way to Fight Back
By: Ashwathy Nair
The Coronavirus pandemic has hit a lot of industry and one of them is the Healthcare industry. Everything in the world is trying to rise in order to shine and get back to normal with innovations that could result in better outcomes.
Now it’s time to fight back! The convergence of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Wearables, Blockchain and point-of-care testing are innovations that are resulting to be more effective. The pandemic has shaken the foundations of healthcare and all that is needed during this time is a rapid innovation to get back the stability.
The post-pandemic world needs to have a healthcare system that is totally transformed. Let’s go through the Rapid Innovations, which is the next phase for the Healthcare Industry to fight back:
Wearables, Internet of Things, and Point-of-care testing
Monitoring health with the help of internet-connected devices have been used by many but the past is left back to draw our own conclusions from the generated data.
The new trend is Modern Wearables like smartwatches, fitness tracker, etc., which are very different and unique. A few decades back, have we ever thought about something that can detect and alert the wearers about cardiac emergencies? Off course not! But now it has become so common that most people are seen wearing one.
Wearable has somewhat become like a measuring device that is getting so accurate that even doctors have started to rely on them as it provides deep insights into health.
IoT (Internet of Things) is one of the most vigorous as well as sensational developments counted in information and communication technology that has the capability to connect many devices into common platforms.
The same way, POC (point-of-care) or with-patient testing is something that allows staffs to make treatment decisions and speedy order of treatment when the condition of a patient is diagnosed. It simplifies the process of testing that the doctors can focus directly towards what the matter is and can provide effective as well as quality care to the patient.
Blockchain
An innovation that is ideal for delivering immediate and transparent information. With Blockchain, it provides more accessibility to patients, doctors, laboratories, pharmacists, etc. and helps in prevention of data leakage and misuse.
This will transform the healthcare sector by letting the evolvement of new business models. Blockchain stores information by making it easy for people to access data and by keeping it safe and secure.
Personalized Medicine
It is common that patients are different and most of the times, the same treatments are not suitable for every patient and they respond differently. There are so many reasons behind patients reacting to treatments differently; immunologic and lifestyle-related, genetic, etc. to solve this issue, the most efficient way is innovation.
One of the most sensational innovation occurred in medicine is ‘personalized medicine’. This provides deep insights into individual patients as well as machine learning that helps doctors to understand patterns allowing to personalize medicines as per individual patients.
Artificial intelligence is a key component of personalized medicine, soon the future will witness the prescription of medicines after examining about how well that medicine will respond to a particular patient and what medicine would cause side effect.
