Post lockdown and quarantine, the role of digital technologies in patient care and disease management is impossible to deny. This evolution, marked by a significant uptake in telemedicine, wearables, and health applications, has reshaped healthcare into a more data-driven industry. The integration of electronic health records (EHRs), digital platforms, and emerging technologies like blockchain is not merely a technological shift but a fundamental transformation of healthcare delivery, aligning with the principles of Healthcare 4.0.
Medical professionals, as well as patients and the general public, have begun to incorporate many of these technologies into their everyday lives. These devices that collect health data are part of what we referred to earlier, IoMT.
Remarkably, the global IoMT market, valued at $72.5 billion in 2020, is projected to surge to $188.2 billion by 2025, with Asia Pacific leading the growth due to supportive globalization policies, indicating a rapidly evolving and impactful technological landscape in healthcare (9).
Types of IoMT Systems
Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs)
- Examples: Pacemakers, seizure predictors, seizure detectors with drug delivery, and nanogenerators.
- Key Functions: Cardiac treatment, seizure forecasting, real-time seizure detection, energy conversion.
- Advantages: Enhanced transmission, effective seizure prediction, improved detection accuracy, self-recharging.
- Disadvantages: Limited control, individual variations, data security concerns, and device interference.
Internet of Wearable Devices (IWDs)
- Examples: Cardiorespiratory trackers, wristwatches for blood pressure, heartbeat sensors, smartwatches for Parkinson’s disease (PD) tremor assessment.
- Key Functions: Cardiac signal processing, blood pressure measurement, heartbeat interval measurement, tremor recording.
- Advantages: Portability, power efficiency, clinical data acquisition.
- Disadvantages: False alarms, limited UI, reduced battery life, low amplitude noise impact.
Operational Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness through Digitization
Let’s explore the profound implications and benefits of digitalization in healthcare. From enhancing patient care to revolutionizing the day-to-day operations of healthcare facilities, numerous studies demonstrate that digitization is not just a technological leap but a crucial step towards more accessible, efficient, and sustainable healthcare systems (10).
Accuracy of Diagnosis
The integration of digital health technologies has revolutionized the accuracy of medical diagnoses. Healthcare professionals can now diagnose conditions remotely with enhanced precision, thanks to the seamless access and sharing of comprehensive patient information, including treatment history and medication lists. This capability ensures a more detailed and accurate patient profile, significantly improving diagnostic accuracy and aiding in more informed clinical decision-making.
Quality of Healthcare
Digital health platforms have significantly enhanced patient access to medical data and services, streamlining the process of managing health conditions. These platforms empower patients to monitor and track their health remotely, fostering a proactive approach to self-care and treatment management. For healthcare providers, these digital tools offer versatility in delivering care across various domains, including therapeutics and both acute and chronic disease management. Crucially, they enable early detection of changes in patient conditions, facilitating prompt and effective responses in emergencies.
Access to Healthcare
The advent of healthcare digitization notably improves access to medical services, particularly in regions like Asia, where a significant portion of the population resides in rural areas with limited healthcare access. This technological transformation alleviates the challenges and expenses associated with traveling to urban centers for medical care, a common issue for rural inhabitants, the elderly, and individuals with mobility constraints. Now, thanks to digital health advancements, patients can access medical services right from their homes or local communities. This includes remote diagnosis and patient monitoring, revolutionizing healthcare delivery by extending it beyond traditional clinical settings.
Cost of Healthcare
Digital health technologies, like telemedicine, are significantly reducing healthcare costs, addressing a vital issue identified by the World Health Organization (10):
Approximately half of the global population struggles with accessing essential health services due to financial constraints.
These technologies empower patients to manage and monitor their health conditions remotely, decreasing the need for expensive and often unnecessary emergency room visits. Additionally, they offer savings on transportation costs, making healthcare more accessible and affordable for a wider population.
Efficiency of Healthcare in an Ever Sparse Landscape
The efficiency of medical services is becoming increasingly important, especially in light of the World Health Organization’s projection of an 18 million skilled healthcare professional shortage by 2030 (10). Enhancing efficiency in healthcare delivery is essential to alleviate the pressure on existing healthcare workers and systems.
Resource Management
Digital transformation in healthcare streamlines resource management by consolidating data and tools into a unified system. This approach moves away from scattered software and databases, reducing redundancy among vendors and centralizing resources. In 2020, enterprise businesses typically used around 900 applications, but digital transformation can integrate these into a central repository, enhancing efficiency and business intelligence (10).
Increased Profitability
Undergoing digital transformation not only enhances efficiency but also significantly boosts profitability. Research by the SAP Center for Business Insights and Oxford Economics reveals compelling outcomes (10):
80% of digitally transformed organizations report an increase in profits, with 85% observing a growth in market share.
Moreover, these leaders anticipate a 23% higher revenue growth compared to their competitors, underscoring the substantial financial advantages of embracing digital transformation in business operations.
Productivity and Agility
By adopting strategies from software development, such as Continuous Improvement (CI), businesses can improve their speed-to-market, fostering a culture of rapid innovation and adaptation. Also, by integrating digital tools that streamline workflows and automate manual tasks, productivity is greatly improved. This accelerates processes and allows team members to work more efficiently, creating a path for continuous organizational improvement and innovation.
A Study of Palpable Progress
A notable study focused on a data-driven decision support system (DSS) for estimating lifetime treatment costs for breast cancer patients with BRCA mutations (11). The research compared an “experience-driven” DSS model, which relied on physician interviews and literature, with a “data-driven” model using real patient data.
The comparison through simulation analysis revealed that the data-driven DSS model offered significantly more accurate cost estimates for breast cancer treatment strategies.
This accuracy is paramount for physicians in selecting optimal treatments, especially when clinical guidelines are unclear, and for policymakers in making informed healthcare resource allocation decisions. The study concluded that leveraging big data analytics can significantly enhance healthcare management processes and decision-making by advocating for increased adoption of data-enabled DSS tools, as evidenced by their superior performance compared to experience-based approaches (11).
Time for Change Is Upon Us
As we stand at the precipice of a new data-driven era in healthcare, the path forward is clear. Hospitals and medical professionals must readily embrace digitization as a technological milestone and an ethical imperative to elevate patient outcomes through predictive and preventative care.
The integration of electronic health records, wearables, AI assistants, and blockchain platforms promises to unlock the sheer power of healthcare data. This paradigm shift brings immense possibility — personalized treatment plans, remote patient monitoring, enhanced diagnostic accuracy, and more resilient health systems.
However, realizing this vision requires concerted efforts from stakeholders across the healthcare continuum to implement interoperable data frameworks, upskill workforces, and secure patient trust through robust cybersecurity and privacy policies. The incentives are monumental — improved efficiency, sustainability, access, and profits.
The time for change is now. Healthcare organizations must actively collaborate with technology partners to digitally transform operations. The future of healthcare depends on it.
