#69-Smart MedTech and Digital Transformation- The New Normal and What’s the Future? By Sidhartha Sharma
This is the second part of the MedTech- digital transformation series
The New Normal and What’s Next?
- Predictive and preventive ve healthcare is the future: Self-diagnostic health devices for young men and women, elders, and childcare will be available in the consumer market. There are devices in the market that can measure and tell the consumer about their erratic heartbeat and stress levels.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning in radiology: “AI won’t replace radiologists, but radiologists who use AI will replace radiologists who don’t,” says Curtis Langlotz, a radiologist at Stanford. An artificial intelligence system built by Google is also showing very promising results in more accurately detecting breast cancer cases when compared to a human radiologist. Human eyes are more prone to error compared to image recognition algorithms and machine learning models that get better with every data set they analyze.
- 3D printing for essential medical equipment and prosthetics: Healthcare is a ma er of life and death. 3D printing is used for the development of new surgical designed equipment, prosthetics as well as the creation of patient-customized replicas of bones, organs, and blood vessels. The artificial limbs help the specially-abled population of the world to become self-dependent. Recent advances in 3D printing in healthcare have led to better, durable, and safer products, reduced production times, and lower costs for patients. During the COVID 2019 outbreak, the healthcare supply chains crashed, and a significant shortage of medical and surgical equipment was witnessed. The emergency saw a lot of automobile and consumer goods manufacturers stepping into fulfilling the medical equipment shortages by using 3D printing technology. It is an excellent example of flexible manufacturing, design thinking, and 3D printing coming together in times of healthcare emergencies.
- AI-enabled Robots as nurses: Tommy, the robot nurse, is a life savior in Italy’s Circolo hospital in Varese. Tommy does not have to wear a mask and helps save lives from coronavirus just the same. AI-enabled Robots will be the future of infectious diseases in hospitalized care. Healthcare workers are too precious to risk their lives to dangerous infections like COVID 2019. During the COVID-2019 spread, about 4,000 Italian health workers have contracted the virus treating victims in Italy, and 66 doctors have died. So far, the focus has been consumer bots, industrial robots, and military tech, but the black swan event of COVID has brought all the attention back to the healthcare systems. The robots limit the number of protective masks and PPE gear that sta has to use. Robots monitor patients, types of equipment in the room, streaming them to hospital workers. The robots have touch-screen faces that allow parents to record messages and send them to doctors. Tommy and his fellow robot nurses have another advantage — they are not subject to exhaustion and can work round the clock. A quick charge of existing batteries, and they are back to work in the ward among the patients.
- Medical devices are moving into the mainstream consumer market
Watches and fitness bands that give heart rate readings
Autoinjectors- They help auto-inject medicines at a particular time in the body.
Pain management devices: These devices are increasingly being invested in and made popular in the consumer market. The athletics recovery market devices are a massive opportunity as the injury rate is higher and needs to recover fast is essential.
Posture correction devices: There are new-age connected devices that give real- me data on the posture of the person wearing them.
Respiratory therapy devices: The asthma care devices are a huge market, and inhalers are readily available in the market.
Insulin pumps for diabetic patients are already a consumer market product.
Health Diagnostic and self-monitoring devices: The med-tech devices are moving to a point where they can help a customer know what allergies, diseases, and health conditions they already have or may have in the future.
Nanocapsules: FDA-approved capsules can give a view to humans about their bodies.
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Sidhartha Sharma is the Digital Transformation Expert and Bestselling Author
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