Throughout the pandemic, innovations in healthcare and medicine have never been more critical. As the world adapted to this new normal, so did the world of healthcare. Developing a vaccine to combat COVID-19 was healthcare’s top priority. But now that vaccine rollouts are in rapid progress, how will the world of healthcare and medicine continue to innovate and adapt to a post-pandemic world?
Technology and healthcare have always gone hand in hand. Through the use of modern technology, healthcare today is leagues ahead of what it was a century or two ago. In the wake of this pandemic, healthcare technology has gone through leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else to develop technology that could save lives.
Here are some ways medical technology has made our lives easier and reasons business-to-business (B2B) tech PR agencies might want to promote it in the future.
Telehealth
Over the pandemic, many patients have been unable to book face-to-face appointments with healthcare professionals. Luckily for them, many medical institutes and professionals have innovated with the use of telehealth. Telehealth takes full advantage of virtual communication by conducting video or phone consultations between doctors and their patients. Not only is this useful during the pandemic, but it’s predicted to become a mainstay in the healthcare industry as more and more patients either prefer virtual communication or have no other choice.
Moreover, the development of telemedicine apps allows doctors and healthcare professionals to access patient records with relative ease and no hassle. These apps are the patients’ means to look for and contact doctors no matter the distance. The services that telehealth offers might be limited to diagnosis and check-ups for now, but with many now turning to it for help and sustenance, no doubt its functions and services will only continue to grow from here on out.
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Robotics has been in the healthcare world ever since the modernization of medicine. Robotics and healthcare go hand in hand, from surgery to rehabilitation. With robotics comes improvements in AI-focused towards serving healthcare patients. From automated chatbots to AI that can analyze CT scans, AI in the healthcare field is just getting started. With enough data, AI is already being used to analyze and identify potential diseases and problems in a patient faster than a human could. AI could also help in decision-making, research, and the education of training health professionals.
With the use of AI in scanning, analyzing, and identifying, combining it with robotics just seems like the most obvious choice. No longer is it a thing of science fiction—AI-powered robots could be just around the corner.
The Internet of Medical Things
The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a network of devices connected by the internet or the cloud made to exchange data faster and easier and streamline communications between parties. The IoMT can be used to monitor the condition of patients, access files and information, track supplies and inventory in hospitals, and even track if a patient is responding well to medication. With the IoMT, patients and medical professionals alike can have everything at their fingertips. Virtual communication in the healthcare industry has never been this easy. And with the introduction of 5G, that could be made even better.
Wearable Trackers
You’ve heard of Apple Watches and smart devices that can track how many steps you’ve taken or how many miles you’ve walked or ran, but the healthcare industry has also been making good use of trackers to monitor a patient’s condition. With the help of advanced AI, wearable trackers can do anything from monitoring a patient’s blood sugar levels to managing chronic conditions. Wearable trackers quickly become healthcare’s go-to data acquiring and analyzing tool, especially over remote distances and locations. With more research, the accuracy of the data can definitely be fine-tuned, and the many functions and services expanded even further to include even such things as X-ray and disease detection.
Virtual Reality
Simulation and virtual reality (VR) help medical students by simulating an actual surgery or working environment. VR can give elderly patients a better experience and care. It can also be helpful in rehabilitation, giving patients of physical therapy the technology and means to accelerate recovery and simulate certain situations, such as in the event of a lost body part or disability. VR can also aid in research and help to test a variety of medicines and surgical operations. The world of VR could be closer to reality than we might think.
Conclusion
The healthcare industry has certainly taken a big hit in the past year or two, but that doesn’t mean that it’s no longer growing. New technology and startups dedicated to making healthcare easier for both patients and professionals are being developed daily. The future of such innovations certainly looks promising for everyone involved. If there’s one thing that we have learned from the pandemic, it’s the importance of healthcare and innovation in the industry. Investors might want to look towards telehealth and other healthcare technology. With the right funding and purposes, what might have only been science fiction can quickly become a reality in the post-pandemic world.