How Digital Transformation is Reinventing Healthcare Industry?

The recent advancements in science and technology have now redefined each and every aspect of our lives. Increasing numbers of healthcare providers are now transforming their operations to digital platforms through new and innovative solutions. It will create a more patient-focused approach providing streamline solutions to understand what the patient requires. By digital transformation in the healthcare system, providers will now be able to gain access to more data points related to their patients which would enable them to create advanced models to optimize their services. By collaborating technologies such as IoT, Big Data, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence, providers will now be able to create completely digitized and robust healthcare systems.

Some of the benefits of introducing digitization to the healthcare industry include improved staffing, real-time monitoring of patients and alerting, patient-focused and optimized services, contactless monitoring, and surgical operations are also possible now through virtual reality. In fact, Virtual Reality simulations can prove to be a game-changer for the entire healthcare industry. They would help us to understand underlying problems and health issues from somebody else’s perspective.

With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Technologies, diagnosing, reducing, and preventing errors would be much more effective. With an increased number of data points collected as a result of digitizing the healthcare industry, performing analytics and generating more accurate results would now be possible. Using AI algorithms, you would now be able to convert your mobile phone selfies to diagnostic tools. Managing and keeping track of records of patients would also be electronic, thus retrieving urgent data related to a patient’s health records would be much faster.

Using automated repetitive processes, vaccine creation would be comparatively faster. Using advanced Image processing techniques, detection of cancer cells, and creating effective and user-specific treatments would also become easier.

Using voice automation technologies like Google Home or Alexa would allow physically disabled patients to manage their chores easily. It would also enhance interactions in the hospitals and notifying the doctors when patients are in trouble would become easier. Automatic appointments and reduced wait times would be a cherry on the top.

Let’s take a look at a few trends in technology that has vastly contributed to reinventing the healthcare industry.

1. Telemedicine

The way patients engage with healthcare providers is changing thanks to a slew of creative solutions. Telemedicine applications provide patients with on-demand access to health services, from finding a doctor to making a virtual consultation to connecting with physicians by video or voice call. The evolution of telemedicine is one of the most dramatic changes in the US healthcare industry. Telemedicine is increasingly gaining popularity in major countries like the United States, where access to healthcare services is limited. 90% of healthcare executives polled said their companies had begun developing or implementing a telemedicine infrastructure. Digital consultations for patients and physicians are one of the greatest examples of telehealth technologies. Virtual appointments enable patients to connect with physicians in remote or rural areas where access to healthcare is limited. Telemedicine helps people with mobility problems to consult with medical practitioners. Telehealth technologies can also be used to treat high-risk patients, allowing health care providers to track their symptoms and behaviors from afar using IoT-based health monitors and wearable devices.

2. Big data

In every sector, big data is changing the way we interpret, leverage, and process data. Healthcare is one of the most exciting sectors where AI can be used to prevent preventable illnesses, increase quality of life, decrease healthcare rates, and anticipate infection outbreaks. Health practitioners can gather vast volumes of data and work out the right ways to do it. The use of Big Data in healthcare may have both optimistic and life-saving results. Emerging tools have made it easier to gather critical healthcare data as well as turn it into useful information for better treatment. Health practitioners can predict and solve a problem until it becomes too late by using data-driven insights.

3. IoT 

Patient-doctor experiences were confined to physical encounters and text messages due to the advent of the Internet of Things. Doctors and hospitals lacked the capacity to constantly monitor a patient’s condition and take corrective steps. In the healthcare sector, IoT-enabled technologies provide remote surveillance, unlocking the ability to keep patients stable and safe while still encouraging doctors to deliver quality treatment. Patient happiness and participation have grown as a result of IoT allowing encounters with doctors more productive and comfortable. Furthermore, remote surveillance of patients’ wellbeing assists in the avoidance of re-admissions and the shortening of hospital stays. IoT has the ability to decrease healthcare costs while simultaneously enhancing patient outcomes. The Internet of Things is transforming the healthcare sector by reshaping people’s interactions in the delivery of healthcare solutions. Physicians, clinics, customers, and insurance providers all benefit from IoT adoption in healthcare.

4. Virtual Reality 

Virtual reality is a device that helps a person to hear, view, and communicate with a computer-generated simulation of a 3-D image or world using special devices such as headsets. Users will immerse themselves in a virtual world created by technology. Unlike standard user interfaces, VR immerses users in a futuristic world rather than just viewing information on a desktop. Virtual reality is being used in the healthcare sector to provide better treatment to patients. Virtual reality is exploding in hospitals and hospital rooms, and it is expected to continue to expand in the coming years. The demand for virtual reality in healthcare will hit $7 billion by 2026, according to GlobeNewswire’s report. Although the system is only in its early stages in healthcare, the industry has begun to understand where it can be applied and the obstacles it faces.

5. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes physicians’, patients’, and hospital managers’ lives simpler by conducting activities that people would typically accomplish at a fraction of the expense and in a fraction of the time. AI is reinventing and revitalizing contemporary healthcare by computers that can comprehend, predict, learn, and function, from discovering connections between genetic codes to driving surgery-assisting robots, surveying chronic illnesses, and performing risk assessments. Compared to clinical decision-making and conventional analytics, AI has a range of benefits. When learning algorithms engage with training data, they can become more precise and reliable.

To conclude, there is no end to the benefits it can provide. No doubt, introducing digital transformation to the healthcare industry would bring with it immense benefits. However, there are always two sides to a coin. No Machine Learning model can accurately predict existing or previously unknown diseases. There will always be a scope of improvement. It certainly depends on the extent up to which we allow digitization to improve our healthcare industry.