Digital transformation has changed the landscape of how industries function in the last few years. It is now one of the top priorities among companies across every sector. Technology has become an integral part of industries looking to improve their productivity, to survive the fast-paced changes and health care is no stranger to its impact.
According to a forecast, it is estimated that the digital transformation in healthcare will register a 25.51% CAGR in 2021-2028. There are many healthcare app development companies that are working to capture this market and gain the beginner’s advantage.
Digital transformation in healthcare can feel overwhelming but it certainly is the need of the hour. With emerging technology, deciding the best investment becomes tricky. Along with it, it is imperative to have the employees on board with this transformation.
While all these feel like a tough job, digital transformation in healthcare brings a positive impact on the sector which makes this transition more important.
How does it positively impact the healthcare sector, you ask? Let’s understand how.
Digital transformation paves the path for developing a patient-focused approach to the health care system. It helps in streamlining the operations of the healthcare system, developing a better understanding of patient requirements, and developing trust among them.
The transformation towards digitization will help in improving patient care, protect patient data, comply with regulations and manage costs.
The progressive technologies help in developing a system for remote clinical aid and robust patient-centric healthcare service. Digitization is significantly improving the underlying aim of this transformation through following.
IoT
IoT has revolutionized how we live and work. Consulting the doctor was restricted to a face-to-face visit until IoT knocked this limitation out. It not just enabled remote monitoring; it also improved patient satisfaction as healthcare became available anywhere and anytime.
Remote monitoring is capable of significantly decreasing the readmission rate and duration of hospital stay by allowing practitioners to monitor the patients remotely.
They have easy access to real-time vital reports through wearable health devices and past medical history. The patients can themselves monitor their lifestyle to make changes suggested by the doctors like controlling blood pressure, sugar levels, heart rate, etc. Healthcare app development is another major innovation supported by IoT which makes patient care easy and faster.
Telemedicine
Telemedicine gained popularity during the pandemic. It refers to the use of technology for patient diagnosis from anywhere in the world, providing prescription, and treatment virtually, using devices like smartphones, tablets and applications like Zoom.
This innovative solution came as a boon during the pandemic when the world was locked inside. Telemedicine saw a jump of about 6000% in the last two years from 22% in 2019. It became a requirement.
It solved a major problem for the healthcare system- reaching patients. From remote villages to managing high-risk patients, telemedicine brought the doctors closer to patients.
The IoT devices like smartphones, health sensors and wearable devices that record critical body vitals, made it more successful. Healthcare App development companies made telemedicine easier through various apps.
Accessibility to medical information became easy
This is one of the many benefits of digital transformation that not only helps the doctors but the patients as well. With digitization, storing and accessing patient’s data becomes easier than ever.
The data which is just a few clicks away is accessible from anywhere. Patients also do not need to run to collect their reports anymore. This seamless streamlining of the reports, their storage, and accessibility are all possible because of digitization.
Big Data
Data is at the core of the digital transformation in every industry and in the healthcare industry it can prove to be useful in ways more than we can imagine.
With the huge sum of data collected through the IoT devices, digitization can help forecast preventable diseases, help to improve the quality of life and reduce treatment costs.
Data helps the management to run their operations smoothly by providing useful insights about the number of patients, appointment bookings, staff management and predicting the expected number of patients.
The healthcare professional can collect body vitals data through wearable devices. These devices also send alerts in case of emergency for immediate attention to the issue. Along with this, it also eliminates human errors.
The digitization of the healthcare industry opens multiple avenues for any healthcare app development company which is looking to built patient-centric apps and help in easy monitoring of health data.
Power of AI, VR and AR- digitization 2.0
These three are more than just digital transformation. These are the epitome of innovation in this industry. From virtual health assistants, nurse bots, AI makes a revolutionary impact in medical imaging, genomics, precision medicine and drug discovery.
It helps in providing highly accurate diagnosis even for fatal diseases like cancer through multiple image processing. Apart from that researchers have started using AI to shorten the drug development time. In fact, according to studies, AI can help in saving 60% of the cost by slashing drug discovery by 4 years. Revolutionary, isn’t it?
VR and AR, similarly, bring ground-breaking changes in how patient care is done. Healthcare App Development companies are using these technologies to develop systems that enable helping patients for reducing pain through a virtual tour to patient’s favorite places. There are apps which help in finding locations for medical aid during emergencies faster.
It would not be wrong to say that these three will be step 2 in the digital transformation of the healthcare industry.