Healthcare: it is increasingly digital
Four trends that will define 2021
COVID-19 is not only changing lifestyles, life choices and consumer decisions, it is also transforming patient behaviors in the healthcare system. The pandemic has accelerated a number of trends that were already moving within the healthcare sector.
Artificial intelligence, digital therapy, and distance health monitoring are trends that have dominated public health conversations, as well as those in the personal lives of many individuals.
Increasingly autonomous patients
Never have individuals been more globally aware of the importance of their personal health as they have in this moment. More and more patients no longer simply take the word of their doctor¹.
They instead turn to the internet for information on their symptoms, health problems they may be experiencing, clinics and treatment costs. They monitor their health independently, accessing patient charts online and using the data to make their own decisions.
Virtual care
Due to Covid, those who have had virtual appointments with healthcare professionals went from 15% to 19% at the beginning of 2020 and then jumped to 28% in April 2020.
Most were satisfied with this form of assistance. On average, 80% claim they will continue to take advantage of virtual care once the pandemic has passed.
Wearable wellness
During the various lockdowns caused by the pandemic, the need to manage one’s own psychophysical wellness changed the behaviors and the purchasing decisions of the public as a whole. In this environment, apps and wearable technology that monitor physical activities, diet, sleep cycles, anxiety and stress, heart rate, blood glucose levels and oxygen saturation were able to provide these values to care providers, wherever they may be and in real-time.
These devices can help save between 70 and 120 billion dollars annually at a global level², a figure that does not even take into account the impact on lower death rates and increased patient satisfaction.
This approach to patient care and monitoring is also significant because it can reduce the duration and rates of hospital admissions while lowering patient recidivism rates. It also helps patients control chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension without constant first-person clinical interventions.
Artificial intelligence
AI use is already allowing healthcare professionals to make better decisions and guarantee more effective and immediate treatments even remotely. 2020 kicked off with the announcement that a joint US-UK research team with the support of Google had developed an AI model capable of identifying breast cancer from mammograms more accurately than with radiological instruments.
According to many estimates³, these support systems could unlock 40 to 70 billion dollars through efficiencies, without even taking into account the clear benefits from reduction of the rates of doctor error.
Most diagnostic tests, in fact, will benefit from artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, while preliminary results show that computers often perform better than doctors with years of experience in making basic diagnoses, choosing therapies and predicting outcomes.
