As healthcare organizations grapple with increasing costs, staff shortages, and limited revenue sources, it’s no secret they are looking for solutions to enhance operational efficiency. This could include software that simplifies scheduling or tools that automate billing, coding, and supply chain management processes.
COVID-19’s lessons have inspired health systems to adopt technologies that streamline workflows and address issues like burnout, worker satisfaction and healthcare inequality.
Remote Patient Monitoring
As healthcare mobile apps and technology become more advanced, patients are taking an active approach towards their wellbeing. According to Deloitte research, by 2023 one out of every five Australians will use smartphones or wearable devices as monitoring tools in order to proactively track their own health.
This healthcare tech trend allows individuals to keep track of their heart rate, blood pressure, calorie consumption and sleep pattern using apps available through healthcare providers or caregivers. Furthermore, some apps allow patients to share their data with physicians/caregivers.
Telemedicine has also proven helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic, alleviating hospital’s burdens through remote patient monitoring (RPM) services. Healthcare professionals can assess a patient’s vital signs and symptoms remotely using RPM tools allowing healthcare providers to avoid hospitalizations, free up bed space, save costs, provide in-home care to keep patients comfortable as well as increase satisfaction rates amongst them.
Wearable Devices
Wearable devices have quickly become one of the top healthcare technology trends. Worn on the body, these wearable devices monitor various aspects of health such as heart rate and blood pressure levels, sleep patterns, exercise intensity levels and calorie consumption – as well as medication adherence.
These devices often resemble wristbands with sensors built-in that connect wirelessly with electronic devices for tracking and recording purposes, such as fitness trackers, pedometers, head-mounted displays (such as Google Glass) or smart watches.
A surge in popularity for wearable devices in healthcare is making them even more prevalent, as they offer remote patient monitoring, better medication adherence and other key services that improve care delivery. This trend could make a major impactful statement about 2023 healthcare, helping individuals better manage their own health and wellness and possibly creating healthier workplaces as companies offering wearable devices to employees have lower turnover rates than those without.
Personalized Medicine
As healthcare mobile apps continue to play an increasing role in improving wellness and personal health, personalized medicine will become one of the hottest trends of 2023. Utilizing patient data for improving treatment effectiveness, strengthening provider-patient relationships, and decreasing healthcare costs.
Presently, physicians can utilize various technologies that provide data about their patients to physicians such as remote monitoring, wearable devices, and electronic prescribing systems. These tools help monitor heart rates, blood glucose levels, caloric intake, and sleep patterns of individuals allowing doctors to prescribe more effective medicines while making more informed decisions regarding care.
An individual’s unique biology can have an enormous effect on their response to medications and risk for certain diseases. Scientists are now conducting molecular level analyses of peoples’ unique molecular characteristics–including their metabolome, microbiome and DNA–to determine the most suitable medication to treat each individual and ultimately advance personalized medicine in its quest towards future.
Artificial Intelligence
Due to healthcare worker shortages and increasing costs for in-person appointments, remote medicine has gained momentum as an emerging trend. Telemedicine uses machine learning and AI for healthcare applications to automate tasks such as reviewing medical imaging or pathology reports, saving time while increasing accuracy for healthcare providers.
Another example of artificial intelligence for healthcare can be seen through predictive analytics: using it to reduce hospital readmissions, anticipate patient deterioration or self-harm and stop no shows at appointments. When combined with natural language processing this can improve clinical workflows by freeing up time for physicians to focus on more patient-facing tasks while creating satisfying relationships with their patients.
Utilizing biomarker testing as part of personalized medicine is another powerful way to tailor treatment specifically to an individual. Such tests can identify blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar levels which might indicate disease in an individual and prescribe appropriate medication to manage their symptoms.