It Didn’t Take an Apple to Keep the Doctor Away, but Zoom Did the Trick!
Three Takeaways for the Healthcare Industry
The Business Unusual trilogy continues. Healthcare, you’re up.
Let’s start with how it took a global pandemic to remind us to wash our hands. We had renowned publications and public figures sharing tips on how to wash our hands! Before our lives were rudely interrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak, digital health technologies were under development. We were advancing from a sick care system that was established in the 19th Century to a preventive healthcare model. But with the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, the medical system was forced to undergo a quick intervention – of the digital sort. We were catapulted into an era of robotic hygiene, remote diagnoses, and virtual care. Necessity really is the mother of invention!
Technology to the Rescue of Hygiene
At first, 3D printers started whirring around the globe to fill the personal protective equipment (PPE) supply shortage, and then settled into producing more whimsical sounding but similarly practical solutions somehow leading to the birth of the 3D Printed hands-free door opener.
Then the robots rolled in, bringing a safe alternative for patient care, highly effective solutions for sanitizing empty spaces with UV radiation, and even shifting form factors, such as UAE based Jacky’s escalator handrail disinfection solution that contributes largely to sanitizing high-contact surfaces and containing the spread of COVID-19. The technology guarantees 99.99% of germ eradication, which is a great thing in a retail-oriented economy without the ugly shadow of a pandemic hanging over our heads.
To operate efficiently, robots and machines exchange limitless volumes of data and for these transactions to occur smoothly, the capabilities of 5G networks are needed. This next generation of wireless technologies brings bandwidth, low-latency, and cost-efficiency – the hallmark mix of features to make our autonomous future a reality. In the healthcare sector, this will hopefully enable robots that are tireless precision machines, so accurate that at times the (human) surgeon can take on a supervising role.
Bleeding Edge of Data
Meanwhile, contact tracing apps were introduced as a way to contain the spread of COVID-19. With smartphone tracking, authorities are able to identify people’s locations and subsequently alert those who might have been in proximity to someone with COVID-19. As the collection of individual data becomes a key element towards containing the coronavirus spread, privacy also becomes a growing concern which is why technology providers need to have an honest and transparent approach in order to give the public the confidence to use these apps. Until we gain access to an immunizing vaccine, we are at the mercy of data-enabled apps to help secure our health. But, as Michael Spratt so eloquently stated in his article, ‘the success of a tracing app depends on people having the confidence to download and install it.’
Here technology could also play a prominent role in safeguarding privacy by keeping sensitive individual data stored on the embedded chipsets within a device, a practice that Apple has spearheaded with their handling of biometric data. Furthermore, 5G makes the possibility of Mobile Edge Computing a reality, enabling the processing of sensitive information away from the Cloud.
Repeat after me: Tech is here to help me grow, not slow me down.
Emerging Technologies
As 5G economies of scale kick-in, allowing IoT to cross-over from hype to the mainstream and become the pulse of the healthcare sector (expected to be worth $534.3 billion by 2025), we will enter the cost-effective, sustainable, and user-friendly era of the wearable experience.
We’re at that stage where checking your body temperature through portable thermometers is the final step for allowing you to enter a mall, office building or even a new country, albeit in a mildly intrusive manner. This will gradually fade into the background as standard security cameras and other “things” will be enhanced with temperature and other sensing capabilities. Meanwhile, expect over the next decade wearable tech to become ubiquitous and multipurpose; ultimately lowering costs and allowing medical professionals to focus on the bigger picture. There’s seems to be a preventive healthcare model in the works.
Will this enable doctors and nurses to ultimately put down their pens and paper and embrace these emerging technologies? Will patients more readily adopt wearables that help monitor their health and avoid irregularities in the first place?
Going forward, it’s definitely BUSINESS UNUSUAL, emerging technologies not only have the potential of evolving the healthcare sector, but other industries as well. Next in line, the Travel experience… stay tuned!
WIRELESSLY YOURS,
ZIAD
This article was written on a laptop while references were researched on an accompanying tablet. The soundtrack was piped through Bluetooth headphones connected to a smartphone running a streaming music app. All devices were wirelessly connected to the home network.
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