PERSONA
Is “Smart” Technology a Saviour of Healthcare?
NEWSCOPE
RESEARCH
ISSUES
WELL-BEING
TRENDS
THEME
Written by VICTOR MUKHERJEE
T
he healthcare industry is continuously sprouting with the exponential evolution of technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and robotics, etc. These new areas of smart technology are expected to pose unswerving influence on the healthcare industry during the next couple of years. Smart Health Technology is equipped to automatically obtain, store and compute health information from technically advanced sensors and offer personalized advice or automated actions from the collected data. This technology can interact and engage with data via Virtual or Augmented Reality to provide even more realtime experience for both, physicians and patients. With the dissatisfaction among junior doctors reaching unprecedented levels (a staggering 80% feel excessively stressed) and the number of doctors progressing to specialty
training dwindling to its lowest rate in the history of the National Health Service (NHS); these changes have never been more needed. In the event of NHS staff struggling to cope up with the growing demand for patient care, owing to the UK’s rising aging population, technology is seen as an enabler which will further propel healthcare professionals to work smarter, and not harder. There are numerous opportunities for healthcare stakeholders/ manufacturers to innovate Smart Health Technology solutions, which are expected to streamline the precise medical care approach, e.g., telemedicine. However, there are also certain restraints in the regular healthcare system pertaining to infrastructure and adequate competencies to integrate Smart Health Technologies. Moreover, manufacturers and service providers need to ensurethe data security and adhere to global standards. Few of the latest applications of Smart Health
Technology are Smart Apps, Smart Pills, Smart Syringes, Intelligent Fabrics, and Smart Wearable Devices. SMART APPS The global smartphone users’ count is expected to surpass 2.5 billion by 2019. This exponential base of users is expected to influence the fate of health and fitness apps, which have already increased by more than 30% since 2016 (as on current date). It is estimated that almost 75% of current active mobile users run their health and fitness apps at least twice a week. With increased awareness among the mass population, people are leveraging technology to take better control of their health conditions such as asthma, infertility, obesity, and diabetes, etc. Moreover, the plethora of user data churned out from these apps is helping the market researchers access unparalleled volume of data forfurther in-depth and precise insights. SMART PILLS The smart pill technology includes a wireless capsule, a receiver, and the
