Technological Advancements in Healthcare
Technological advancements have driven the healthcare industry forward in recent years. It has improved the discovery, prevention, and treatment of diseases. A revolution of this magnitude could not have occurred without the rapid development of technology and the digitalization of healthcare processes.
The World Economic Forum has estimated that, by 2030, more than 1 billion people will require retraining in healthcare technology due to its extraordinary growth. The healthcare industry must remain attentive to the developments in healthcare technology in the coming years to make informed decisions in the future. Healthcare organizations should take the right steps to facilitate improvements in quality, safety, efficiency, and output while preserving accessibility or reliability.
The following are a few technological advancements that the healthcare industry should keep an eye on:
1. Barcode Scanners
Healthcare today faces several challenges, making it difficult for healthcare providers to manage data effectively and efficiently to ensure patient safety. It is not uncommon for hospitals to experience difficulties with inventory management, tracking materials, and verifying patient information on a daily basis. Furthermore, the manual execution of these processes is time-consuming and prone to human error.
There is, however, a cost-effective and convenient solution to these problems, which can be provided by a healthcare barcode scanner. In the healthcare industry, barcodes allow for accurate and timely data entry, allowing workers to be more productive rather than spending their time manually updating records.
It can also provide an added layer of privacy to protect patient information. As a result, healthcare providers remain compliant with the rules and regulations provided by the Health Portability and Accountability Act.
Healthcare barcode scanners have other applications in the healthcare industry. Aside from patient identification and record management, pharmaceutical companies utilize barcodes to keep track of batches of medicine and ensure a more seamless distribution process.
In clinical settings, barcodes can help ensure proper medication administration, which, in turn, reduces errors. Also, barcode scanners are helpful in blood transfusion and laboratory samples. They can help improve patient safety and accuracy by allowing technicians to track samples for more precise results.
2. Neurotechnology
The potential benefits of neurotechnology are boundless. There are already practical applications of this technology in health care and wellness. Essentially, neurotechnology refers to all the components used to study the brain, visualize its processes, and even repair, enhance, or control its functions. Any device that intercepts electrical pulses in the body may be one of these components, such as electrodes, computers, or other devices.
At the moment, neurotechnology is used in healthcare to conduct brain imaging, capturing magnetic fields that are generated by the electrical activity within the brain. Other applications include neurostimulation, which stimulates nerves and the brain to influence brain activity, and neuro devices, which are implanted devices that monitor or regulate brain activity.
Today, neurotechnologies fall into three categories. These include:
- Neuromodulation Technologies: They utilize neural interfaces to stimulate the nervous system structures. For example, they stimulate deep brain activity to minimize tremors in patients with Parkinson’s disease and treat those with stroke conditions by stimulating the nervous system to improve neural activity.
- Brain-machine Interfaces: They’re designed to read information from the brain, enabling the patient to control external software by using their neural activity. They’re most helpful to people with motor disabilities.
- Neuroprostheses: They’re designed to restore or replace cognitive, motor, and sensory functions that the patient has lost. A typical example is a cochlear implant that helps restore hearing.
Neurotechnology has made remarkable strides in recent years, offering groundbreaking advancements in the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of neurological disorders, as well as enhancing human cognition and communication.
3. Wearables
The advancement of wearable technology has transformed health care. A patient’s status can be monitored remotely during the day, or the patient can monitor their own status. Deloitte conducted a survey that found that 39% of respondents own a smartwatch. Consumer smartwatches can be utilized in healthcare settings as they become more widely available.
Smartwatches can provide many essential features that help track an individual’s health, including heart rate monitoring. However, smartwatches can measure more than just heart rate. With pedometers and oxygen saturation sensors, these devices can also monitor the user’s physical health. The detection of low levels of blood oxygen saturation is challenging without the use of specialized sensors. With this condition being potentially life-threatening, smartwatches equipped with this sensor may be able to save lives.
As smartwatches become more sophisticated, they can monitor vital signs such as blood pressure and temperature. The data provided by these sources can assist healthcare providers in advising patients and making accurate diagnoses.
4. 3D Printing
The use of 3D printers has rapidly gained traction in recent years. These game-changing printers in medicine enable healthcare professionals to manufacture surgical implants for surgery. 3D-printed prosthetics are becoming increasingly popular because it is completely customized and can be precisely tailored. As a result, unprecedented levels of ease and mobility are possible.
Additionally, 3D printing is becoming more popular for presurgical planning. Anatomical replicas are making it possible for surgeons to perform procedures they would not be able to do otherwise.
5. Nanotechnology
There have been many innovative ways of treating diseases with the help of nanotechnology in recent years. By the end of 2021, the first report of self-replicating organic robots, known as Xenobots, appeared in the scientific literature.
Several applications for nanotechnology in the medical field are available, including nanobots that traverse tiny blood vessels to detect disease and nanoparticle drug delivery systems capable of accurately delivering toxic drugs to the appropriate cells with no side effects.
6. Precision Medicine
With the advancement of medical technology, healthcare has become increasingly personalized. In precision medicine, factors such as lifestyle, environment, and genetics are taken into account for each patient individually. For example, precision medicine can be used to treat cancer patients with medication tailored to their specific genetic makeup. As this form of medicine targets cancerous tumors according to the patient’s genetic makeup, it causes gene mutations. This makes cancer more susceptible to being destroyed by cancer medication than other forms of treatment.
The future of healthcare will be transformed by precision medicine. While precision medicine has made the most progress in oncology, it has wide-ranging applications in other areas, such as the treatment of rare and genetic diseases, and it may also prove useful in treating infectious diseases.
7. Medical Imaging Solutions
Medical imaging solutions refer to the use of various technologies, such as X-rays, CT scans, MRI, and ultrasound, to produce detailed images of the human body for diagnostic and treatment purposes. Novarad is a leading provider of medical imaging solutions, offering a wide range of cutting-edge technologies to healthcare providers. The company’s offerings include advanced PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) solutions and radiology information systems (RIS), among others. These solutions from https://www.novarad.net/ are designed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of medical imaging, making it easier for healthcare providers to diagnose and treat patients.
However, with modern medical imaging solutions, training may be required to ensure the proper operation of these technologies. For example, Zedu ultrasound training is designed to provide transformative education so clinicians can integrate ultrasound safely and effectively to improve patient care.
Wrapping Up
As the year 2023 approaches, healthcare technology is expected to improve in all areas. An underlying digital infrastructure will be critical to carrying healthcare organizations into the future. Going forward, it is critical for the healthcare industry to remain focused on providing high-quality, highly affordable healthcare to everyone.
