It is an undeniable fact that Covid-19 has led to industry-wide changes in most sectors. While the other sectors took their operations over to the digital side of the world, the healthcare sector faced the most disruptions in the course of the pandemic. Although the healthcare sector has slowly been advancing with technology, innovation is still a dire need of the sector to tackle the challenges that the sector faces. With the growth in technological innovations, Artificial Intelligence (AI) along with other technologies and trends have the potential to significantly improve the healthcare sector.
Artificial Intelligence
Pandemic induced lockdown, kept the majority of the population around the globe constrained into the confines of their home. As an obvious impact, people were inclining towards digital measures to seek medical support. From an online consultation to drug deliveries, digital methods held the backs for countless to the point that Practo, an online patient care management system reported a 500% increase in traffic in the first half of 2020.
Electronic health records are also one of the crucial factors that can benefit from the technology. Electronic health records on digital healthcare apps can improve the accessibility of the records for both the patient and healthcare providers. Moreover, the digital existence of health records doesn’t only promote easy accessibility but also ensures management, efficiency, and longevity. The manual processing of medical records often results in inaccuracies in healthcare data as well inconsistencies during treatment. Furthermore, taking medical operations on telehealth can contribute more to patient support including appointment management, healthcare provider reviews, security, quick accessibility, etc.
Using AI in healthcare has applications that assist with pandemic detection, development of the vaccine, better analysis of CT scans, etc.
Virtual And Augmented Reality
Both virtual and augmented reality have claimed themselves as significant technological advances with massive potential in countless possible applications. In the age of Covid, AR and VR technologies can play a vital role in bringing the various aspects of the virtual ecosystem into reality, supporting science, art, innovation, etc.
The technology succeeds at generating a simulated environment that can help people with motor deficiencies and provide assistance in physical therapies. Moreover, the applications of VR have already expanded to being used in treating patients with cognitive disorders. Through VR, patients can be exposed to experiences that are inaccessible in the existing environment and help them better their emotional and mental health.
Blockchain Technology
Blockchain technology has been growing and expanding into almost every sector. The use of decentralized ledgers can heavily elevate the quality of data security in the healthcare sector. Exchange of transactions and medical records through blockchain technology can significantly eliminate fall points in the system along with securing the authenticity of data.
Moreover, with blockchain’s peer-to-peer system, the participants in the network including patients, healthcare providers, researchers, drug manufacturers, suppliers, etc. have access to a network that is interoperable yet immutable at the same time. Blockchain has the potential to contribute to the integrity and reliability of the data along with protecting it from increasing threats and cyber-attacks and breaches.
DISCLAIMER : This and other personal blog posts are not reviewed, monitored or endorsed by Blogjab. The content is solely the view of the author and Blogjab is not responsible for the authenticity of content of this post in any way. Our curated content which is handpicked by our editorial team may be viewed here.
