Healthcare's High-Tech Future

To meet the unprecedented pressures the Covid-19 pandemic has placed on medical services, 74% of global healthcare companies have accelerated digital transformation to help safeguard consumer wellness (Twilio, 2020). From preventive care to diagnosis to aftercare, we look at how the health tech revolution affects every stage of the patient journey.

Summary

1. Prevention is the Cure

The pandemic has accelerated the already flourishing telehealth industry, leading 67% of medical companies to say they expect Covid-19-era healthcare changes to be long-lasting (R2G, 2020). Key areas for future innovation include expanding the digital infrastructure to support the healthcare ecosystem and leveraging holistic health monitoring for preventive medicine.

2. Digitising Diagnoses

Social distancing has ushered diagnoses into the home. Aided by artificial intelligence (AI) developments, along with growing public approval of virtual-first interactions, getting the right diagnosis has become faster and more convenient, handing the consumer more control over their health.

3. Modernising Medical Monitoring

As health-tracking wearables evolve, consumers are cutting ties with unnecessary physical appointments. Remote hyper-personalised monitoring is set to become a standardised feature in medical care. But security concerns remain a barrier: 55% of US consumers currently don’t trust tech brands to keep their health data secure (Accenture, 2020).

4. Aftercare Gets the Tech Treatment

The medical ecosystem doesn’t end with hospital discharge – especially in this period of at-home, pandemic-stretched healthcare. Brands need to look beyond patients’ recovery, providing digital solutions for prescription, insurance and lifelong holistic care. Expect a new age of digital health passports, where tech centralises consumers’ medical information.

Prevention is the Cure

The pandemic has accelerated the already flourishing telehealth industry, leading 67% of medical companies to say they expect Covid-19-era healthcare changes to be long-lasting (R2G, 2020). Looking ahead, holistic health monitoring is set to enhance preventive medicine and wider digital infrastructure will be needed to support future healthcare ecosystems.

Digital Healthcare was already gathering pace before the pandemic. But now it has been significantly expedited because of the need for social distancing. In China alone, in-person hospital visits declined 21.4% year-on-year between January and June this year (NHC, 2020), highlighting the need for more comprehensive remote services. Unsurprisingly, health tech investment deals in the first half of 2020 were up 18% compared with the same period in 2019 (SVB, 2020).

Nearly half (44%) of global digital health companies expect the pandemic and its aftermath to have a positive impact on their businesses. In contrast, 67% of hospitals and traditional healthcare providers foresee the opposite (R2G, 2020). This highlights the urgent need for the medical industry to better integrate tradition and innovation.

To upskill nurses caring for Covid-19 patients, Swedish AI learning platform Sana Labs launched the training initiative Project Florence. Nurses can take an AI assessment that appraises their knowledge and identifies gaps, creating bespoke learning pathways with actionable insights.

Personal Protection Provisions: There’s a clear need for future-focused design that reduces single-use protection equipment waste, making sustainability an integral part of future healthcare. Researchers in Iran and India are developing a rechargeable N95 mask, which uses battery power to restore filters’ electrostatic charge. Combined with mechanical filtering, the system stops particles from entering the wearer’s airways.

Digitising Diagnoses

Social distancing has ushered diagnoses into the home. Aided by AI developments and by growing public approval of virtual interactions, getting the right diagnosis has become faster and more convenient, handing the consumer more control over their health.

“What was supposed to take 10 years is going to happen in a year. Not just digitisation of medical procedures but also a transition from telemedicine to real-time medicine, and healthcare based on artificial intelligence.” Ittai Harel, Managing General Partner, Pitango Venture Capital

Consumers are getting comfortable with remote diagnoses. Since the spread of Covid-19, more than half of the UK public (55%) say they would trust a health tech app to diagnose them (Quin, 2020).

Enter UK-based virtual healthcare provider, Medefer. The start-up leverages a nationwide network of contracted NHS consultants working remotely who, on average, take 10 hours to review a case on Medefer – cutting down on the several weeks’ waiting time of traditional models. Having raised £10m ($12.8m) in September 2020, the platform promises to reduce waiting lists by 70% and outpatient costs by a third for the UK NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups using its services.

AI advancement is expediting the most critical diagnoses. Take Mumbai-based AI start-up Qure.ai’s latest head CT scanner and automated chest X-ray interpretation. Its deep-learning tech and patented algorithms detect and prioritise scans requiring urgent attention, alerting the radiologist immediately.

Analysis by Cancer Research UK shows that approximately three million people have missed out on cancer screening during the pandemic (CRUK, 2020) – the demand for home diagnoses has never been more pressing.

In October 2020, UK private health insurance provider Bupa UK launched a remote skin assessment service to detect skin cancers from home. Within the next working day, customers receive a kit including a smartphone and dermatoscopic (magnifying) lens to take high-resolution photos. Bupa will then send a report within 24 hours or contact patients to discuss the next steps.

Modernising Medical Monitoring

In September, the government of Singapore and Apple launched LumiHealth, an initiative that rewards user behaviour via the Apple Watch and iPhone app. Singapore citizens can earn up to SGD $380 ($276) when completing activities such as swimming or walking. The app also offers reminders for health screening, personalised coaching and tips for better sleeping habits and food choices.

Increasing intensive care units’ (ICU) capacity while reducing staff exposure has become a pandemic priority. Scottish start-up Current Health’s AI wearable for home use alleviates such issues. The device, which claims to have the same accuracy as ICU monitoring, sends real-time data, such as oxygen saturation levels, to the cloud for analysis by the company’s proprietary algorithms. If a health risk is detected, the wearable alerts a medical professional.

Health tech start-ups are tailoring services to vulnerable demographics. London-based Feebris helps carers monitor elderly patients, allowing more independent living outside hospital. The Feebris app uses AI to log a patient’s daily needs and take them through a check-up that collects health data from medical-grade sensors.

US-based telemedicine start-up Hazel Health is specialised in children’s health. Offering access to remote services both at home and with a school nurse, it has received a significant boost since lockdown began, expanding to reach 1.5 million children as well as raising $33.5m for further growth.

Despite the appetite for convenient remote monitoring – 57% of Americans are open to this – health data privacy remains a sticking point. More than half of US consumers (55%) do not trust tech companies to keep digital health information secure (Accenture, 2020). Health tech brands will need to double down on proving ethical data usage and watertight privacy – see Passport to the Future below for more.

Aftercare Gets the Tech Treatment

Insurance providers must keep pace with healthcare changes. Those who don’t cover telemedicine initiatives will soon risk losing relevance. This is especially important in the US, where regulations vary from state to state.

Walgreens pharmacy is simplifying the search for medical insurance with its October 2020 launched Find Rx Coverage Advisor – a website and app helping consumers find the right health and prescription plan for their needs.

London-based insurance provider Bima recently raised $30m to expand its emerging markets-focused mobile-first, micro-health and life insurance platform in Africa and Asia.

In October 2020, the UK’s first fast-delivery virtual pharmacy Phlo (launched in 2019) announced plans to roll out its service beyond London to meet surging demand from quarantined consumers. The app registers prescriptions from GPs, tracks the medicine’s journey to the user’s door and lets them order repeats.

Digital health passports could be key for future travel and work. California-based blockchain authentication service iCrypto recently won a contract to develop a smartphone-based, on-ledger platform housing individuals’ health records, including proof of Covid-19 testing and vaccination history. The market for blockchain technology in healthcare is predicted to see 65% annual growth over the next five years (Open PR, 2020). Blockchain’s secure encryption technology will help assuage consumer privacy concerns and help drive its expansion.

In October 2020, Apple launched the Health Records feature in iPhone’s Health app in the UK and Canada, centralising patient health data (encrypted to ensure consumer privacy), such as allergies, vaccinations and lab results, into one place. In the future, this could act as a health passport.

Irish start-up AI-Vic is developing AI chatbots to help patients through end-of-life care. It responds to research showing that people are more comfortable with non-human avatars when discussing emotive health decisions. The platform can simplify the often complex and resource-consuming process of end-of-life intervention.

Conclusion

As 2020 has proven, preparation is crucial for the smooth running of healthcare industry. Health-detection tech can provide early warning data to help implement reactive measures. Embrace digitisation to ease staffing and training pressures. Emulate Sana Labs by using AI to quickly identify and fill knowledge gaps.

Digital healthcare should consider not only sick patients’ needs but also the aftermath of illness. Turn to tech for help with logistics and explore health passports as consumers’ ticket to future wellness.

By swapping physical diagnoses with remote alternatives and reducing waiting times, patients will be incentivised to seek help for ailments and receive diagnoses sooner. Develop seamless, streamlined virtual tools that empower patients to take control of their health and help staff to prioritise those patients in need of critical care.

Consumers have warmed to hyper-personalised health tracking during the pandemic. Yet, surveys show that when it comes to health data, consumers still trust tech companies the least (Accenture, 2020).

Sources: Accenture, Stylus, Open PR, Twilio, R2G, SVB, NHC