Electronic Health Reporter

By Bentley Raynott, healthcare technology analyst, Tatvasoft.

With the advent of new technologies, the entire healthcare industry is gearing up to adopt new initiatives. Marked with different growth patterns and trends that could vary within its different sub-domains, the industry seems to have witnessed a couple of contradicted situations with inconsistent stagnation in others. The following post sums up certain trends to watch out in the development and data-driven technologies to take into account.

Artificial intelligence

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data technologies have shown a prolific growth like never before. For example, IBM Watson — an AI-based system seems to have enhanced core management, accelerated drug discovery, matched patients with clinical trials, and fulfill other tasks. It is considered as one of those systems that have aided several medical institutions saving a great deal of time and money in the future. It is assumed that in 2019 and all the upcoming years, AI will become more advanced and will be carrying a wider range of tasks without human monitoring. Here are some predictions of AI trends in healthcare.

Early diagnosis

Having a patient-centric approach has become a norm these days. A unique radical change in the set of expectations that a consumer has today. Do you feel that front end challenges has the potential to suffice the need for consumerism especially in regards to the diagnostic aspect of patient care? Well, several diagnostic entities are found embracing the superior methods through which they can stay ahead in the value-driven system.

It may interest you to know that some of the major pharma players are seen investing in the consumer genetics field for the development of novel pharmaceutical products. As a result, GlaxoSmithKline entered into a four-year collaboration with 23andMe; one of the leading players in the genetic testing market; for drug discovery through human genetics.

Being in the healthcare sector, clinical decision-making is expected to advance in order to provide simple, standardized, effective and efficient across the care spectrum focusing on prevention, illness, and chronic care wellness, by virtue of a comprehensive strategy such as consumer genomics and precision medicine.

Gene editing technologies will advance

This technology, especially in the diagnostic platform, are making to change the face of disease detection, bio-sensing, and diagnostics in the years and many more. Moreover, it can also prove equally viable in the field of agriculture, biomanufacturing and forensics.

Apart from this, CRISPR mainly transforms the utility of complex laboratory-based disease diagnostic tests into home diagnostic kits that are easy to operate similarity of that of a pregnancy detection kit. In simple words, it can serve as an easy point-of-care solution for diagnosis of complex disorders.

• In mid-2018, Mammoth Biosciences launched first of its kind CRISPR-based diagnostic platform for detection of diseases.
• Similar developments are expected in the along the year 2019 as the platform is easily programmable to locate a wide range of DNA- or RNA-based targets. Thus, CRISPR based diagnostics is expected to aggrandize with the discovery of more and more biomarkers in the future.

Coherent omnichannel approaches

If you take a close look at the current pharmaceutical model, you will find it neither economically sustainable nor operationally capable of meeting the demand of the evolving marketplace. There was a time when the healthcare industry was incapable of delivering solutions in terms of both quality and quantity in the face of rising global disease burden calls for an immediate change in the pharmaceutical operations. Earlier companies used to get rewarded for selling the highest volume or developing the most innovated product on the shelf; the modern times clamor for value addition to health services, additional benefits and better reimbursement policies.

Simply, keep walking ahead!