Healthcare and wellness have been the world’s most attention and time-demanding industries. In the last few years, countries started working a lot to develop the technology sector and were not paying enough attention to the healthcare sector. But COVID-19 gave a reality check to the whole world. It made people realize the importance of bringing technological advancements to the healthcare sector so that the world can fight such situations in a better way. Initially, people were suspicious about incorporating technological advancement in the healthcare sector. They believed machines were inaccurate or would replace humans’ jobs entirely.
However, COVID-19 showed the world how important it is to bring technology into healthcare. Every day people are bringing new technological advancements, which bring many benefits.
Advantages Of Adding Technology To Healthcare
Saves Time For Patients And Doctors
The biggest perk of adding technology to any sector is saving time. The same goes for the healthcare industry. Technology helps medical practitioners save a lot of time by automating their processes and saves time for patients by reducing their number of visits to the doctor.
Makes Communication Easier
Not all people have access to good hospitals and healthcare facilities. In this world, there are several places where healthcare services are in a poor state. Technology enables effective communication between doctors and patients from any geographical location, giving everyone access to high-quality health care. In fact, this Invisalign dentist in Saratoga Springs uses SMS and e-mails to communicate with their patients apart from the usual phone conversations.
Makes Tracking And Monitoring More Efficient
Many patients have to monitor their condition multiple times daily, and not everyone has a nurse or caretaker to monitor and track their health status. In such situations, technology helps a lot as many devices track and monitor patients’ health and send reports to the doctors on their own without any supervision.
These are the most significant advantages of adding technology. Whether a device is as small and handy as a healthcare scanner or as massive as a quantum computer, you can implement a mix of healthcare and technology in devices of all sizes.
After seeing the advantage of implementing technological advancements in healthcare, around 80% of health systems plan to invest more money in developing technology and digital solutions for healthcare over the next five years.
Latest Technological Advancements in the Healthcare Industry
Following are some of the latest and most valuable technological advancements in healthcare sectors.
1. Predictions And Classification Of Diseases
Artificial Intelligence is used worldwide to make predictions and classifications on test data after getting trained by vast amounts of training data. Researchers are implementing AI in the health sector by training machines with vast volumes of training data like (images of MRI, CT Scans, and X-Rays) so that machines can become capable of analyzing and predicting diseases.
Google’s Deep Mind has been 12% better than human radiologists in detecting breast cancer. AI is also used for predicting new diseases and creating preventative medicine and treatment plans for them to nip the evil in the bud and stop any further spreading of the disease. AI has created tools that are much better than humans at predicting diseases.
2. VR-Powered Head Gears To Train Surgeons.
VR stands for Virtual Reality, a technology used to immerse people into a virtual environment with the help of devices like head gears, glasses, etc.
Initially, it was used in fun activities like video games and virtual shopping. But now, researchers are implementing it in healthcare. VR-powered head Gears are used to train surgeons for surgeries instead of a time-consuming and resource-wasting option like a corpse that is not even available. Such VR head gears improve the performance of surgeons by 230%, and the best part is that surgeons can even study from their rooms to polish their skills.
3. AR (Augmented Reality) For Studying The Human Body
AR is a growing technology that is similar to VR. The only difference is that VR changes the real environment with virtual reality while AR adds it to the real environment.
Initially, AR was used for fun things like filters and stuff, but now it is getting implemented in the health industry. Many universities are using AR to teach anatomy to students so that they don’t need a human body or cadaver to study it and can study anatomy anytime, anywhere.
4. VR (Virtual Reality) For Mental Health
VR-powered devices are now used to give therapies and treat mental illnesses. Initially, psychologists and therapists used to take patients to the spots they were scared or traumatized of to cure phobias and PTSD. However, it often makes situations worse by triggering the patients.
Psychologists have now started using VR-powered devices to help patients with PTSD, phobia, autism, and other mental illnesses. It is safer as it does not push the patient out of their comfort zone.
5. Genome Sequencing For Personalized Medicine
Everybody has different DNA, which decides how our body reacts to certain drugs and medicine. The quantity and components of medicine react with the DNA of the human body and create a reaction.
Sometimes the reaction is as planned, and sometimes it has some adverse effects. Companies can’t study your DNA and then create a medicine as it is a very time and resources consuming procedure, and that’s why they go with the results of the majority. However, sometimes we need medicine that caters to our unique needs, and that’s when technological advancement comes into play and creates personalized medicine with genome sequencing.
Conclusion
For the longest time, people believed that technological advancements in every industry would create many problems and replace humans. However, with time, people started understanding that machines are not enemies and can work with us to make our lives easier.
All the technologies mentioned above are new but have generated excellent results for human welfare. Combining these technologies in health care will save a lot of time for medical practitioners and patients, and they can use the time for better purposes. These technologies often give better results than humans, as speed and accuracy are the most prominent features of computers.
