With every passing year, new and innovative medical technologies are changing the way practitioners offer treatment. The medical interventions and treatment protocols have changed dramatically over recent decades, evolving at an exponential rate in tandem with technology.
Here are some of the most exciting innovations that are transforming modern healthcare services today.
Home test kits
The COVID-19 pandemic has created ongoing challenges for an already overburdened healthcare system. Increased testing and treatment requirements, the need for isolation and social distancing, and new variants every few months have put extra strain on already limited resources. These issues aren’t just specific to COVID-19, either. Many secondary testing facilities and technicians have been reallocated to aid in this ongoing crisis, creating shortages and delays across the board.
Home test kits are one of the positive innovations to come out of the pandemic. If you take the time to read more about this innovation, you’ll find that modern test kits can now cover COVID-19 testing and other affected services, like STI and drug testing.
These kits offer several benefits. Empowering patients to conduct testing at home prevents the spread of COVID-19 and helps streamline testing services. Additionally, other tests allow patients indirectly affected by COVID-19 to move on with their lives and get the diagnosis and treatment they require. It’s expected the prevalence of test kits will continue in future years, with further time and research being dedicated to creating home testing protocols for various diseases and ailments.
The dental industry experiences new and exciting tech developments every year, and 2019 is seemingly no exception. The innovations are not only modernizing practices, but they are leading to improved oral care and smaller appointment times, which can each support the patient experience.
If you are a dental practitioner or want to learn more about the industry, here are five exciting dental tech trends in 2019 to watch out for.
Laser Dentistry
One trend to watch is laser dentistry, which is helping dentists to provide more advanced care. For example, many oral health professionals are using it to:
It is expected to become a popular choice for dentists, as it could potentially shorten healing time, eliminate the need for anesthesia and can sterilize the gums to reduce the likelihood of an infection.
Digital Automation Technology
More dental practices are turning to digital automation technology software to streamline and organize internal processes.
For example, you could use the technology to:
Text appointment confirmations to patients
Schedule social media posts
Create in-house submission forms
Pre-record voicemails for follow-up appointments
Dental practice automation also helps ensure consistent office practices for patient record keeping, insurance billing practices and HIPAA record handling compliance. These compliance areas can be a source for dental board investigations.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence(AI) could one day transform the dental industry. For example, it has led to the invention of robo-dentists that are capable of performing minimally invasive dental procedures, such as teeth cleaning, filling cavities, extracting teeth and applying caps.
Thanks to the advent of technologies, we can witness irreversible changes in our daily life today. It is now easier to cope with our everyday routine because we have smart solutions that speed up the pace of our life and make it more convenient.
Healthcare is where technologies are expected to revolutionize treatment and research methods we are used to so much. Hence, we have prepared some technological trends that will make healthcare more advanced in 2019.
The Internet of Medical Things
The notion of The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is tightly connected with wearables. This technology is designed to transmit the patient’s data through various sensors and gadgets attached to the patient’s clothes or directly to their body. Fitness trackers and smart sensors are specifically elaborated to measure blood pressure, glucose level, pulse, heart rate, etc. Along with that, you can count calories you’ve burned, and miles walked.
Well, it doesn’t sound that innovative in 2019. But what makes it one of the most progressive trends is that the gathered data can be used in many various and innovative ways. For example, preventive medicine can benefit a lot with the help of IoMT. Research gets more accurate and timely, and it is even possible to prevent epidemics using the stats gathered in this way.
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Telehealth
Well … yes, consulting a doctor through your telly looks like a scene from one of those futuristic novels showing what the world would look like in the 21st century. In fact, it is what we have now. Modern technologies allow us to forget about hours spent in a clinic waiting for your doctor to invite you. That also includes waiting for the results of your tests.
Now you can consult any doctor in the world having a computer and an Internet connection. Imagine that you needed to see a reputable specialist in another country. It would be highly inconvenient to go all the way there just for a consultation. Firstly, you’d have to spend a lot of time. Secondly, you might need help to move around. And finally, it would be costly.
Today, you can contact your doctor from any spot in the world and get their consultation. It will not work in emergency cases, but it can work well if you need help with urgent but small issues. This is a good possibility for those who reside in far rural areas or require a highly specialized doctor to receive timely medical assistance.
The technology can also allow people to get consulted more frequently, which will improve the overall health of the population and establish better relations with doctors.
Augmented reality (AR) is one of the hottest trends in technology today. Its popularity is equally reflected in projections, as the market is expected to be worth more than $160 billion by 2020, up from just $4 billion in 2016. But its use is not limited to simply chasing Pokémon and other games. With a growing number of applications across a range of industries, the technology is increasingly being adopted within the healthcare sector, where analysts predict its value will reach around $5 billion by 2025.
A number of healthcare providers and medical device manufacturers have already begun to realize AR’s potential for improving their efficiency and effectiveness. A handheld AR device developed by US-based AccuVein, for example, enables clinicians to quickly and easily locate veins for injections – scanning and projecting a virtual image of a patient’s veins on their skin. And in the UK, surgeons at London’s Imperial College Healthcare Trust use Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headset to create an accurate, real-time, virtual 3-D map of a patient’s blood vessels, muscles and bones before making a single incision.
Its impact isn’t only being felt by healthcare providers. In pharmaceuticals, for example, there are AR apps available which can give patients access to information such as dosage instructions and possible side effects. Those patients simply scan a particular prescription and the application recognizes the medication. Furthermore, solutions such as Ghostman are aiding patients with physical rehabilitation therapy following serious injury, and scientists are even exploring how the technology can be used to treat psychiatric and neurological conditions.
Given the benefits it offers both healthcare providers and their patients, AR’s growing popularity within the sector is not surprising. As with any new technology, though, implementing AR is not without its challenges.
Obstacles to overcome
While there may be a great deal of hype around future applications, it’s worth remembering that AR is still a relatively nascent space. There is currently little in the way of an ecosystem around the technology, as well as a lack of interoperability — both obstacles of implementation.
As it stands, developers are required to either build AR applications for one single platform or find ways of creating content for different platforms. Since each of these options has its own specific requirements, most AR apps today tend to be stand-alone projects. This situation is likely to be resolved over time with the implementation of common standards which will enable the creation of common frameworks, speeding up the overall development and deployment process. Once these standards are in place, it’s likely that AR will become more widely adopted within the healthcare sector.
Perception is also crucial — the future of AR depends on how it is perceived by end users. If AR is to be widely adopted, it’s important that developers ensure they put user experience at the heart of every project. As a burgeoning technology, AR is still something of an unknown quantity, so it is vital that sufficient time be given to ensure success. To do this, factors like loading and rendering three-dimensional objects, taking into account the real-world environment and conditions, and to carrying out extensive load testing will be required prior to release. Lag, or a lack of response in an AR application, might be frustrating when you’re trying to catch a Pokémon – but when we talk about care delivery, the consequences will be considerably more dire.
By Brooke Faulkner, freelance writer; @faulknercreek.
Being rushed to the hospital is a traumatic event in a child’s life, yet a staggering 25.5 million children are taken to the emergency room each year. The reasons for these ER trips range from poisonings and infections to mental health conditions and diabetes, plus a host of terrifying injuries and baffling disorders. In addition to emergencies, there are children who make frequent visits to hospitals or stay there for weeks on end to receive ongoing treatment for chronic conditions.
Children today are much more tech-savvy than in the past — they’re getting smartphones before their age hits double digits. Many hospital administrators take tech trends into consideration in order to make the overall experience better for patients and their families. Even the processes and workflows that hospital staff follow now stress the patients’ experience. Technology is also helping doctors and surgeons perform their jobs more efficiently and safely while offering quality healthcare to more families than before.
Faster care for injuries
The last thing you expect when heading to a birthday party is leaving with your child in an ambulance. Bounce houses and similar structures are responsible for a number of injuries, and they have been for a long time. Injuries can happen at any time, and hospital staff needs to be prepared to handle them to ensure optimal health outcomes.
In more dire circumstances, faster care is necessary to save the lives of those injured. In the wake of natural disasters, as local leaders scramble to help their respective communities find stability, faster healthcare processes are required to protect the lives of those affected.
Some hospitals are using technology that tells patients the wait times at nearby emergency rooms. This can help parents decide where to take their child for the fastest attention possible. If there’s no hospital that can treat an injury at the moment, the parent can opt to visit their primary doctor or another emergency clinic.
By Amy Sklar, SVP of advanced manufacturing communities, UBM.
As reported by Rock Health’s Midyear Funding Review, 2018 got off to a roaring start with $3.4 billion for digital health funding in the first six months of the year. All indicators point to continued momentum in 2019, as startups and veteran companies alike work to unlock the potential of digital health technology to increase efficiencies in healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes.
In the coming year we will see innovations including smart, connected products offering opportunities for new functionality, consumer engagement, and higher product utilization. The industry will additionally see startups enter the space leveraging new capabilities for data collection and analytics to better apply insights to make medicine more precise. To learn more, a panel of experts will expand on this topic, speaking to the evolving nature of digital health at MD&M West Anaheim 2019.
Miniaturization
While nanotechnology isn’t anything new, we will see continued interest in developing the space with an anticipated move toward more catheter-based and minimally invasive procedures. Medical devices are getting smaller with the demand for technology-driven advancements, and rapid developments are being made in design options to enable drug delivery. In particular, breakthroughs in new drugs and biologics are increasingly seeking localized delivery for better therapeutic effects.
Surgical robotics
Medical robotics has an exciting future. At the Medical Design and Manufacturing (MD&M) 2019 conference in Anaheim, we are seeing a significant increase in companies impacting the surgical robotics field. A few key players include Intuitive Surgical, TransEnterix, Medrobotics, Medtronic with its acquisition of Mazor Robotics and Neural Analytics. Robotic-assisted surgery has the potential to improve patient care and vastly increase the efficiency and accuracy of healthcare teams. We are entering a world where surgical robots are more than just a robotic arm. It consists of intraoperative-imaging, surgical navigation, 3D imaging, pre-surgical planning software, among others, that all mesh seamlessly into the surgeon’s workflow to enable improved outcomes.
Augmented reality and virtual reality: Changing the face of healthcare
One of the most exciting areas of development in the medical technology arena is augmented and virtual reality. While augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have a variety of benefits, we will see these technologies expanding access to healthcare in 2019. Telemedicine is still in its infancy, but with population health on the forefront of medical technology conversations, 2019 will see major strides in advancing virtual care to support the two thirds of the world’s population that doesn’t have access to safe or affordable surgery.
With every passing year, new and innovative medical technologies are changing the way practitioners offer treatment. The medical interventions and treatment protocols have changed dramatically over recent decades, evolving at an exponential rate in tandem with technology.
The dental industry experiences new and exciting tech developments every year, and 2019 is seemingly no exception. The innovations are not only modernizing practices, but they are leading to improved oral care and smaller appointment times, which can each support the patient experience.
Thanks to the advent of technologies, we can witness irreversible changes in our daily life today. It is now easier to cope with our everyday routine because we have smart solutions that speed up the pace of our life and make it more convenient.
Being rushed to the hospital is a traumatic event in a child’s life, yet a staggering