The year 2023 is anticipated to boost the healthcare sector through ground-breaking discoveries and technologies. Most of the major modifications are still in the future! Future developments in healthcare technology are anticipated to result in new, astounding capabilities and tactical advances. Technologies have been transforming the healthcare sector over the past ten years through numerous advancements in disease detection, treatment, and prevention. Without the rapid development of AI-driven technology and the digitization of healthcare operations in response to more harsh global conditions and the increased need for affordable and high-quality medical treatment, this shouldn't have occurred.

On-Demand Healthcare technology

Patients and medical professionals now have new chances to live in a more sustainable environment and treat even previously incurable diseases thanks to the use of technology in medical applications. A few examples of technologies that enhance medical facilities include artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, virtual care, the Internet of medical things, and 5G. We're only starting to realize the potential of personalized healthcare technology, which is a booming sector of the economy.

Telemedicine Trends

The use of telemedicine in the medical field is growing due to a number of variables. Patients with chronic conditions required an alternative to conventional care for ongoing monitoring and treatment during the COVID-19 epidemic. In order to provide care remotely, healthcare organizations embraced telehealth and telemedicine.

• Tele-care embedded in EHR -

  Solutions for telemedicine and telehealth have several ways to integrate with EHRs. Clinics can smoothly transmit patient records with other practices when they have an integrated EHR. Furthermore, using the system makes it simpler to update patient data. Additionally, it helps doctors to enhance patient care through timely prescriptions, reports, and refills. Additionally, patients can submit insurance claims from the comfort of their homes.

• Artificial Intelligence -

  t's a technology that has swept the globe and is having an effect on every tier of society, including the provision of healthcare. AI is altering how we previously saw medicine, from chatbots assisting patients in real time to high-quality analytics. There are many ways that AI is used in telemedicine. It enhances data quality and offers organizations useful insights for enhancing business plans.

• Internet of Medical Things -

  Future technologies will become more effective thanks to the innovative Internet of Things. Medical IoT is used by tracker devices like smartwatches and activity trackers. These gadgets include sensors and other technology that allow systems to communicate data. Remote patient monitoring is considerably aided by IoT devices. The blood sugar and heart rate of a patient can be remotely recorded by a doctor. Additionally, it warns patients and empowers them to manage their own medical care.

• MHealth -

  Due to various mobile phone applications, health information technologies, activity trackers, and other factors, the usage of mHealth is increasing. mHealth is used in telemedicine to manage patient files, send medication reminders, track patient vitals, and more. Health outcomes and patient-provider interactions are being enhanced by the incorporation of mHealth into telemedicine.

Remote Patient Monitoring

The rising use of virtual healthcare services and delivery systems is one of the most intriguing trends in today's healthcare landscape. A technique for providing healthcare called remote patient monitoring (RPM) uses technology to keep track of a patient's health outside of a conventional clinical environment. RPM is the term describing the specific technology that is utilized to send information electronically between patients and doctors. RPM enables practitioners to monitor patients between clinic visits or in situations when in-person therapy is impractical by treating both acute and chronic diseases. RPM gives clinicians the ability to monitor patients almost in real time, collect the necessary data, and make adjustments to improve care outcomes, which is especially useful for chronic care.

SaaS solutions are also able to provide high availability and reliability in terms of uptime and performance. Cloud-based applications do not require on-premise maintenance or upgrades, which ensures that organizations can rely on their software no matter what. This allows healthcare providers to share data, photos, videos, and other resources 24/7 without interruption or delay. Furthermore, SaaS-powered hospitals can continue their operations even if there is an outage at one of the hosting sites due to a power failure or natural disaster, thanks to its distributed architecture.

SaaS also improves security in healthcare. Delivering applications through the cloud means that users can access programs and data securely without having to worry about firewalls, encryption protocols, or other risks associated with on-premise solution deployments. With SaaS, providers can ensure up-to-date security measures are always in place, ensuring patient data remains encrypted and safe from cyber threats. In addition, time, since there is no need for onsite IT resources, adopting a SaaS solution, simplifies the way organizations manage their technology and reduces maintenance costs. With many potential savings and benefits, it’s no wonder that more healthcare facilities are turning to SaaS to improve their operations.

Healthcare Data Interoperability

It has always been difficult to securely access and share health data. Lack of interoperability can cause a population's or an individual's health needs to be misunderstood, which can result in mediocre results and more expensive treatment. Healthcare systems can access, share, integrate, interpret, and work together to employ various information systems, applications, and devices in a coordinated manner through healthcare data interoperability. The advancement and advantages of interoperability in healthcare are advancing due to the rising use of new electronic data interoperability standards like HL7 FHIR. Having complete access to the patient's medical records by medical professionals, no matter where they are in the world should be the aim of establishing interoperability in the healthcare industry.

• Enhanced care for Patients:

  Patients frequently handle administrative duties such as looking for paperwork, completing several forms, reiterating their symptoms or medical history, and figuring out insurance. Healthcare facilities may provide patients with quicker, more precise, and coordinated care by streamlining this process using interoperability, which will improve their entire experience.

• Better safety for Patients:

  Organizations may gather and understand data across systems and applications, minimizing errors brought on by missing or insufficient patient data, by developing and implementing enhanced interoperability processes.

• Stronger Privacy & Patient Security:

  Interoperability can improve the security and privacy of patient data by compelling businesses to thoroughly evaluate how their personal health data is handled and shared. Organizations may better understand where this data is housed and who has access to it by examining how this information is entered into a secure, interoperable system. This will help them secure patient data and protect privacy.

• Minimized costs for Healthcare:

  It can also enhance patient care and hospital security. Interoperability enables organizations to save time with every patient by always providing the appropriate data to the patient, the treating physicians and caregivers, and the affiliate.

Virtual Assistance for Staffing Issues

The healthcare sector is currently concentrating on raising patient participation to an ideal level, particularly by implementing digitization. The most effective method to raise health outcomes and save healthcare expenditures is digital patient involvement. A tight labor market, staffing shortages, and high turnover rates continue to have a big influence on the medical sector.

More than two-fifths of respondents (41%) indicated their staff turnover rates increased in the most recent quarter, compared to 33% who said it kept the same and 26% who said turnover recently declined, according to newly revealed data from a Medical Group Management Association MGMA Stat poll. More practices are turning to virtual solutions to close gaps, enhance productivity, and accelerate their revenue cycle, and there is no sign of a slowdown in sight. According to the MGMA Stat Poll, 59% of medical group practices surveyed will have employees working permanently remotely or in a hybrid environment by 2021. With more practices and patients becoming more receptive to employing remote and outsourced services in novel ways, this drastic recalibration is advancing medical networks. scheduling, billing/coding, call centers, etc.

Virtual health assistants are largely utilized in the healthcare sector to enhance clinical operations. Additionally, it is utilized to assist medical professionals with low-value administrative activities like gaining access to patient records and distributing therapeutic instructions, prescriptions, and general information to patients. Additionally, delivering non-clinical advice more successfully so that healthcare practitioners can concentrate on their primary responsibilities.

Many time-consuming duties can be handled by an outsourced virtual assistant who is assigned to a healthcare network, a practice, or a particular doctor:

Connecting Online Pharmacy and labs

Only 38% of patients reported receiving fully understandable medical information during their most recent visit to the doctor and feeling free to ask questions, according to the Siemens Healthiness survey. Due to their lack of knowledge or comprehension, the majority of people who require medical assistance run the risk of misusing their medications.

With e-Pharmacies & e-Labs, it is easy for patients to be in charge of their own health and the ongoing availability of pharmacological information. It makes no difference if the consumer switches doctors or relocates to a new city and shops at various pharmacies every time. Secondly, the patient always has access to their prescription history and he can quickly share it with pharmacists or doctors and give them a wider perspective of medical conditions. The improvement of pharmaceutical retail by e-pharmacies has shown significant promise, and the sector's expansion will only benefit the online healthcare ecosystem.

Evolution of Remote Care

A patient's condition can be continuously monitored using Remote Medical Care, a telemedicine service that also allows for preventive and control exams outside of hospitals. As long as they have access to a cellphone or Wifi connection, patients may now communicate with their doctors remotely and receive care whenever and wherever they need it. Technology can assist doctors in providing their patients with better treatment. The specialist may respond online, set up a video conference with you at your doctor's office, or arrange a face-to-face meeting. These online consultations could lessen the need for unneeded in-person referrals to specialists, shorten wait times for their advice, and avoid needless travel.

Digital Therapeutics

The healthcare industry is currently undergoing a digital revolution that will result in significant changes to many areas of the patient experience, including appointment booking, service delivery, and bill payment. The subset of digital health known as digital therapeutics (DTx) includes technologies, goods, and services from the healthcare and wellness sectors. The DTX is described as "delivering evidence-based therapeutic treatments to patients that are driven by software to prevent, manage, or treat a medical ailment or disease" by the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA). To improve patient care and health outcomes, they may be utilized individually or in combination with drugs, gadgets, or other interventions. DTx is a brand-new class of software tools that promotes improved and long-term health outcomes through altering patient behavior and remote monitoring. These programs are designed to provide successful results. Products that treat disease, manage a condition, and enhance a health function are the three key product categories for digital therapeutics, according to the Digital Therapeutics Alliance.

All three of these categories' products, according to the alliance, must "provide a therapeutic intervention and employ clinical outcomes to support product claims." A DTx product, according to DTA, should be able to both prevent and manage a disease or problem in addition to being software-driven and supported by research. The use of DTx may enhance primary care procedures. A key benefit of DTx is that it gives doctors the freedom to treat patients whenever and wherever they need it, outside of the confines of a clinic or a hospital. Therefore, primary care providers can take full advantage of technological advances to provide affordable treatment alternatives that close current treatment gaps, thereby motivating patients to collaborate for better health outcomes.

Remote disease monitoring and prediction

Due to an unanticipated and significant increase in patients during the coronavirus (new COVID-19) pandemic, it is extremely important to regularly check on patients' health conditions before any serious illnesses or infections arise. Elderlies and people with disabilities who are frequently exposed to serious diseases like cardiovascular disease (CVD), heart disorders (HDs), hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), hypercholesterolemia (HCLS), or various infections such as novel COVID-19, can greatly benefit from early diagnosis and prediction of serious chronic diseases. This can help reduce the heavy treatment burden on these communities.

Extended reality (XR)

The world of medicine and health care has undergone an extended reality revolution. Many hospitals and medical centers have expanded their reach thanks to innovation and technology. Augmented, virtual, and mixed reality is the three main techniques that reflect extended reality, and they are beneficial for improving healthcare facilities. Extended reality is a word used in technology to describe the world created by computers that is both virtual and real. It serves as a tool to change how companies engage with digital media and has the ability to encourage interaction between the physical and digital worlds. Users can view the digital image thanks to extended reality. In this technology, computers display images and information on a two-dimensional screen.

Virtual reality has several uses in the healthcare industry, including teaching residents how to do procedures. This helps the patients cope with their pain and their fear before surgery. The use of augmented reality (AR) to visualize medical information, for as by superimposing anatomical information on a patient in real life, is ideal. This can facilitate quicker, more accurate procedure execution for professionals. VR is demonstrating some real therapeutic potential. It can be used, among other things, to immerse patients in soothing virtual settings, which can serve to calm them prior to (or even during) treatment, lessen pain, and generally enhance the experience of being in a hospital or clinical setting. VR and AR can increase accessibility for health and well-being while also enhancing patient outcomes.

Accounting for Security and Technology Costs

A few factors that have significantly increased the cost of healthcare technology include electronic health records, online patient portals that let patients view their personal health information, make payments, and schedule appointments online, as well as the costs to upgrade and maintain these systems. As they need to improve technology for analytics, cybersecurity, ACO integrations, telemedicine, and other uses, hospitals, and healthcare systems are confronted with the growing difficulty of successfully budgeting for rapid technology and IT expansion.

Billing and Claims Processing

Medical claims processing and billing are the foundational elements of any healthcare insurance provider. It is here that medical data is first processed by the insurance company through careful examination, approval, and payment for the submitted claim.

Although physicians' first concern is patient care, many are new to the field and lack the expertise to manage medical bills. Providers get reimbursed for the medical services they provide to patients by submitting invoices to the insurance companies that cover such services. There are numerous steps in it. First, claims are created by giving the given medical services particular ICD (used for diagnoses) and CPT (used for treatments) codes. Important factors including patient demographics and plan coverage specifics are included in these claims. The claims are then delivered to the Payors. Each claim is assessed by the insurance companies, who then pay out in accordance. Claims must successfully pass a number of technical protocols and meet industry standards in order to be qualified by the Payors. One such regulation that guarantees high levels of security throughout the transmission of patient data is HIPAA. To speed up the procedure and increase effectiveness, processed claims are submitted electronically.