In this article, we discussed the tech in healthcare, how is health care tech applied, furthermore we also talked about how it has changed healthcare and its benefits.
Definition
Healthcare Technology is any technology, including medical devices, IT systems, systems, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and blockchain, designed to support healthcare organizations.
How is healthcare technology applied?
From massive analytical imaging scanners to tiny wearable devices, technology is an essential part of modern healthcare. In addition to new treatments and medical procedures, technology has improved many healthcare business processes as well. Many people have come to enjoy the accessibilities of scheduling appointments online, accessing test results and records with just a few clicks, or sending questions to their providers through email or text.
Here are just a few examples of the areas in which healthcare technology innovations are supporting the next wave of advances in healthcare:
Disease diagnosis and treatment
Using AI to process data, like medical images, and develop disease models can potentially help clinicians make diagnoses with more precision. For example, recent work from IBM Research has shown that AI can be used to recognize and interpret brain activity patterns in MRIs to track the progression of neurodegenerative illnesses, such as Huntington’s disease.
Medical imaging
Computers and AI models are particularly valuable in medical imaging because they can help turn pictures into numbers and detect trends. These modernizations can help radiologists and other clinicians manage the incredibly large volume of images they have to review by identifying high-value findings and bringing irregularities to their attention.
Healthcare operations
Many hospitals and healthcare systems are starting to build on improvements they’ve seen with electronic medical records and find other ways to systematically improve their operations. Cloud technology, analytics and mobile technology are just a few of the technology’s organizations are using to optimize their digital substructure.
Clinical research
Life sciences organizations are using technology to transform how clinical trials are being performed. Smart devices, telehealth visits and sensors are being used to support devolved trials that make data collection more efficient and convenient for the people who participate.
How technology has changed healthcare
Many advanced rises in health technology have been made in the periods people have been practicing medicine, yet few have had as much widespread influence or impact as digital technology. Dramatic improvements in networking and computers have not only expanded options for medical treatments but have also transformed how clinicians perform their jobs.
Although forward thinkers started discussing the possibility of using computers in medicine as early as the 1960s (link resides outside ibm.com), computers were originally too expensive and untrustworthy for medical practices to rely on. As technology improved and costs came down, policies and data standards (link resides outside ibm.com) were created to encourage healthcare organizations to adopt new technology not just for medical equipment, like diagnostic imaging machines, but also for everyday record keeping. Paper medical records were digitized and mostly replaced with electronic health records (EHRs) that help make it easier for health data like test results or diagnoses to be accessed efficiently and securely.
As the healthcare industry faces new challenges, technology solutions are helping leaders to improve performance, increase collaboration across systems and manage costs. As demands on organizations increase, healthcare technology can streamline processes, automate tasks and improve workflows at a scale that’s not possible for humans alone. As providers at hospitals and health systems embrace value-based health repayment models, these solutions are helping healthcare professionals to improve patient care, create better experiences and reduce fatigue.
Benefits of technology in healthcare
Improving patient care and experiences
Using technology to measure and capture data across the whole system of patient care gives health organizations a big-picture view of how they’re performing. Technology also helps to automate that measurement so organizations can continuously review their results, spot issues that need to be fixed and uncover ways to improve care and the patient experience.
Real-time information exchange
From clinicians to patients to payers, many different groups need to be able to access health records for different reasons. Traditionally, organizations have had to maintain different records for each group. But with new technology that makes it easier for digital patient records to be standardized and stored securely, more organizations are integrating their data so that authorized people can access the records they need at the time they need them.
Flexibility for patients and clinicians
Patients are busy and finding time for appointments can be a struggle. Telemedicine technology and patient portals provide more ways for people to communicate with health professionals. Wearable technology, like heart monitors, also gives clinicians more ways to evaluate the well-being of their patients and provides them with more options to record and assess symptoms as patients go about their lives.
Drug Development
The pharmaceutical industry is leaning on AI and machine learning to power a new wave of drug research and development. These tools are currently being used in a variety of aspects across the industry to help speed up time-consuming tasks like investigative certain chemical combinations that might help create the best drug and identifying patients who could best benefit from a particular drug trial.
Health tech in Fitness
Fitness has become a larger focus of the health tech ecosystem. The industry has developed hundreds of wearables, apps and other tools that do everything from track our workouts to measure our sleep schedules, all in the name of increasing fitness and reducing preventable costs on the healthcare system.
Diagnostics and Error Reduction
The healthcare industry is now using a variety of tech tools to tackle one of its major problems: incorrect or overdue diagnosis. By filling tech into genetics, pathology and other important diagnostic fields, health tech companies have helped detect deadly diseases like cancer earlier and with greater truth than relying on humans alone.
Healthcare Technology for Surgery
Surgery has seen some of the biggest improvements in health tech competence and advancement over the years. As you read this, robots are assisting with a variety of operations, from minor non-invasive procedures to open-heart surgery. These robotic surgical assistants come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the tiny bot that crawls the surface of the heart to a giant arm that acts as an extra set of hands during measures.
Conclusion
Healthcare technology’s uses are seemingly endless. Health tech is being applied in everything from hospital administrative processes to cancer research and surgery in order to improve efficiency throughout the industry and make the patient experience as painless as possible. An entire host of software tools and applications make it easier for hospitals to handle their growing directorial workloads. Artificial intelligence is helping organizational teams update patient flows by doing everything from exactly calculating wait times to forecasting peak busy hours for staff setting up. Meanwhile, apps are asking patients initial questions and ordering plans so doctors can use their time more efficiently.