Technology has proved useful in every single aspect of our lives, but it particularly deserves credit in the healthcare industry. We’ve seen a massive evolution in medical technology over the years, much of which has proven vital in saving lives, enabling new breakthroughs to be made, and simplifying the jobs of healthcare professionals.
Here are a few examples of how technology has changed – and continues to change – the healthcare industry:
1. Personalized treatment options
When a patient visits a doctor, the doctor usually has minimal control over the actions a patient chooses to take going forward to treat an illness. However, this could all be set to change, as some GPs are experimenting with wearable technology, which can provide targeted insight to help deliver a precise treatment plan for the patient to follow.
This can be used in patients looking to treat a specific illness, like type 2 diabetes, or patients who are perfectly healthy and want to stay that way. Additionally, patients who are looking to manage a chronic condition would benefit from a 24/7 personalized treatment plan.
2. Smart sensors
Sensors are used in so many of the technologies that we don’t even recognize them most of the time – but they’re particularly essential in the healthcare industry. Companies that provide medical sensors to hospitals, clinics, and other medical institutes enable professionals to save patients’ lives on a daily basis.
Some medical technology, like life-supporting implants, uses sensors to make smarter patient measurements. Sensors are also used more widely to enable bedside and remote monitoring of a patient’s vital signs and other relevant health factors. The benefit of a sensor is that it can offer reliable and accurate real-time feedback on a patient’s health whether the patient is at home visiting a doctor.
3. 3D surgery practice
Many surgeries are incredibly complicated in nature, and doctors are usually limited to how thoroughly they can prepare for an operation in advance. With technology gradually evolving, some surgeons are now able to produce 3D reconstructions for patients, which they can review before even making any surgical incisions.
This technology will increase the success rate of complex operations and help to provide surgeons with a clearer image of how the surgery will be performed before the operation takes place.
4. Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence and augmented reality have made a name for itself in the world of entertainment, but its purposes go far beyond its use in immersive movies and videogames. Many AI and AR devices already exist in the medical environment, such as devices that can make a patient’s veins visible, helping a medical professional to more easily take a blood or insert an IV.
It’s thought that in the future, artificial intelligence will be used not to take over a nurse or a doctor’s job, but to assist them in their tasks to cut down on time and improve efficiency. If medical professionals are equipped with a device that gives them X-ray vision, for example, that would cut down the usual X-ray process substantially.