Three game-changing innovations that can revolutionise healthcare

The healthcare industry wouldn’t be what it stands for today without continuous innovations in the field. Technology has played a crucial part in the development of medicine, dating back to the 17th century. Especially, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitated telehealth services, the role of technology in shaping the healthcare sector was highly accentuated.

Having said that, let us take a look at some of the most compelling cases of technologies that may greatly benefit the medical industry in the future.

Virtual patients for doctors

The introduction of virtual patients (VP) can revolutionise the future of medical education. According to medical professionals, “virtual patient” is an interactive computer simulation of clinical scenarios from real life for training, education, or assessment in the healthcare and medical space.

It can be either screen-based or interactive patient scenarios that can deal with the challenges faced in medical education. A well-designed and interactive VP-based learning can foster deep understanding for handling the speedy growth in medical knowledge.

VPs can be efficiently integrated into medical education by coordinating their use with other learning activities and assessments. These can also replace some of the lectures and textbook assignments.

Do read: Precision medicine: All you need to know

Selfie-based diagnosis

Undoubtedly, the future belongs to Artificial intelligence (AI). In the medical industry as well, AI holds great potential. Generally, a person’s face can indicate if he/she is feeling unwell. With the help of AI, researchers claim that the traits of a person’s face can be used to detect warning signals for diseases.

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For instance, one of the research studies has highlighted that facial analysis improves diagnosis. A research team from the University of Bonn has developed a new AI technology that can identify rare genetic diseases through a single picture. It can spot slight facial attributes and compare them to its database to establish an approximate genetic disease.

The selfie-based diagnostic technique holds a great promise for people from remote and unreachable regions worldwide. They could send selfies and receive a proper analysis.

Robotic health workers in the age of pandemic

Robo health workers have gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The highly contagious coronavirus put all the frontline healthcare workers at significant risk. To avoid the pathogen’s spread, many healthcare services and elective surgeries were cancelled, which imposed a burden on patients and resulted in economic loss.

Robots have always served human beings by protecting them from hazardous tasks and the technology can be exploited to its fullest in the age of pandemic. A healthcare robot can act as a physical barrier between a patient and a healthcare worker. Robots can transport drugs across hospitals, as well as clean, disinfect and measure patient temperature. It is a potent tool to stave off the ubiquitous fear of pathogen infection and maintain healthcare services during future pandemics.

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