Patient-centric treatments and convenience of visitors have become key industry trends for healthcare facility managers post the COVID-19 pandemic. These managers are adopting contingency planning to be prepared for any future pandemic-like situation. This includes robust medical inventory, availability of healthcare practitioners through telehealth and investments in healthcare informatics to track past & present patient records for future needs.
Top 10 healthcare industry trends and innovations in 2022 are described as follows:
- Internet of Things (IoT) and Analytics
Healthcare systems in both developed economies like the U.S. & Italy and in developing countries like India & Bangladesh are increasing efforts to encourage acceptance toward IoT technologies & analytics software. These technologies help to maintain resilient supply chains and medical inventory in healthcare facilities.
2. Telehealth
Since healthcare is a revenue-sensitive market, hospitals, clinics and research centers have entered the competition to provide next-gen services to their patients. Hence, telehealth, eHealth mobile apps and 24hr remote monitoring of patients has become the need of the hour.
3. Video Visits
Though many patients still prefer in-person care and office visits, the pandemic has opened up new opportunities for video visits in the healthcare industry. Understanding patient preferences will help identify telehealth’s role in future healthcare delivery and shape new healthcare industry trends & innovations.
4. Healthcare Informatics Cybersecurity
Healthcare informatics is anticipated to revolutionize the way healthcare stakeholders operate. However, growing awareness about unethical use of patient information has led to the demand for cybersecurity. Healthcare industry trends are pointing toward the use of cybersecurity tools to identify and prevent phishing, medical device insecurity and any misleading activities.
5. Smartphone-based Technologies
Stakeholders in the healthcare industry are taking cues from the World Health Organization (WHO) to deploy software based platforms with the help of smartphones into a medical device which holds potentials to measure blood pressure accurately. Since smartphones are widely used, even by individuals in remote areas or low-resource settings, such technologies eliminate the need for additional devices or other accessories for monitoring blood pressure.
6. Hospital-at-Home Innovation
Senior program manager Julia Resnick at the American Hospital Association suggests that hospital-at-home is a promising model to enable the home as a point of clinical service.
7. Virtual Reality for Training
Growing need for upskilling in the healthcare industry has led to innovations with virtual reality (VR) for training large groups which is not always physically possible to stay up-to-date with new healthcare concepts.
8. 3D Printing
Artificial intelligence (AI) companies are increasing R&D in 3D (3 dimensional) nasal swabs for testing of infectious diseases since this technology fast-tracks production and increases accessibility for the same.
9. Robotic Technology
The Coronavirus pandemic witnessed the influx of robots to deliver relief to COVID-19 positive patients and practitioners by delivering PPE (personal protective equipment), lab samples & other diagnostics tests in different healthcare departments.
10. Smart Virtual Assistants
Healthcare innovations in AI-powered chatbots include the enhancement of user experience to answer a series of questions by technology users. These chatbots are equivalent to several doctors that help to answer questions round the clock.
All these healthcare industry trends and innovations of 2022 indicate the need for training of medical staff and awareness at individual level in low-resource regions in order to improve medical outcomes.