The shifting future of digital healthcare
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the accelerated adoption of digital health care technologies by necessity. Both national and private healthcare services adopted new digital methods at unprecedented rates. Some of these systems, such as the NHS track and trace app, international collaborative datasets, and surveillance systems for suspected COVID-19 cases in high-risk groups (Kapoor et al., 2020) are all examples of how technology was expedited to directly aid in the response to a global pandemic.
However, this adoption of digital tech may have long lasting ramifications for the structure and direction of our future healthcare systems. Online virtual doctors’ appointments and “on-demand” access to medical professionals has seen the growth of companies and services providing tailored medical expertise to match their clients’ needs and schedules. Doctors and medical practitioners themselves are being commodified as a result of the shifting dynamic and flexibility that digital technologies provide.
Big data is another emergent phenomenon in the digital healthcare landscape, balancing more personalised patient outcomes with data protection regulation (Agrawal and Prabakaran, 2020). Some of these risks can be addressed by the synchronous rise of block-chain technology, allowing securer protection of electronic health care records. Big data can provide possibilities of creating predictive models and systems to lower medication errors, prevent re-admission hospital visits, predict admission rates, and provide accurate responsive staffing requirements.
Another technological divergence of this sector is the adoption of virtual reality across a diverse range of modalities, from reducing chronic pain, to providing virtual training programs and tools for surgeons to practice complex procedures. These devices are even being explored as methods to reduce negative mental health outcomes such as loneliness and depression, preventing cases from even requiring direct health care intervention (Tsao et al., 2019).
One of the largest under-reported changes coming to healthcare is the rise of 5G mobile internet and proliferation of non-invasive medical devices. In combination, these can allow the live collection and streaming of user’s health data, allowing doctors direct access to health information, providing diagnostic recommendations based on personalised biostatistics from users’ devices (HR sensors, exercise trackers, sweat meters). This may well fundamentally change how we interact with health care providers and receive individualised health care treatments.
Finally, advancements in artificial intelligence have produced a variety of powerful tools, including chat bots, virtual healthcare providers, drug identification systems, and protein folding techniques (AlphaFold from Deepmind). These are transforming how research into diseases and medicines is conducted and is likely to have significant impact on preventative medicine in the coming years.
We are on the precipice of an exciting era of digital healthcare reform, here at UVIA we want to take an active role in creating safe digital technologies that empower individuals to take control of their own health.
References:
Agrawal, R., Prabakaran, S. (2020). Big data in digital healthcare: lessons learnt and recommendations for general practice. Heredity 124, 525–534. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-020-0303-2
Aditya Kapoor, Santanu Guha, Mrinal Kanti Das, Kewal C. Goswami, Rakesh Yadav (2020).
Digital healthcare: The only solution for better healthcare during COVID-19 pandemic?,
Indian Heart Journal, Volume 72, Issue 2, Pages 61-64, ISSN 0019-4832, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ihj.2020.04.001
Tsao, Y. C., Shu, C. C., & Lan, T. S. (2019). Development of a reminiscence therapy system for the elderly using the integration of virtual reality and augmented reality. Sustainability, 11(17), 4792.