The Future of Healthcare: AI and Wearables Revolutionizing Patient Outcomes
With the rapid advancements in technology, the healthcare industry is transforming towards more personalized and efficient care. AI and wearables play a major role in this transformation, with the ability to collect and analyze vast amounts of patient data in real-time.
Studies predict that by 2025, 40% of all IoT devices will serve as healthcare data sources. Medical IoT devices, such as smartwatches, wristbands, e-textiles, and glucometers, are revolutionizing the healthcare industry, disrupting traditional care delivery models. These innovative technologies offer a wide range of benefits, from early disease detection to remote patient monitoring, with the potential to deliver unprecedented improvements in healthcare outcomes. Moving towards a more connected and data-driven healthcare system can create a brighter future for patients and healthcare providers.
Limitations and Challenges of Conventional Healthcare Systems: Moving Beyond Reactive Care
Conventional healthcare systems, including Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), are typically designed to support reactive healthcare. In this model, when a patient encounters a healthcare provider, a limited amount of data is collected from a limited number of devices over a short period.
However, this reactive approach has limitations that can hinder the delivery of quality care. Some of the major challenges include:
- Observation data is collected only during encounters, which is limited.
- Data is in a proprietary format that is nonstandard.
- Continuous vitals streamed from smart devices cannot be easily captured in EHRs.
- Each device has its own operating system, APIs, and data formats, making interoperability and analytics difficult.
- Questions around data access rights and data portability arise. Who has the right to access the data? Can records be moved from one hospital to another, from one country to another?
These challenges indicate a need for a more proactive approach to healthcare beyond just collecting data during encounters.
By embracing technologies such as the Medical Internet of Things (MIoT), Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, hospitals can replace traditional monitoring tools and work towards a more comprehensive and continuous approach to patient care.
Overall, a paradigm shift towards a more proactive and patient-centered model of care is needed, one that embraces innovative technologies and prioritizes quality and results over the volume of services provided.
Transforming Healthcare with AI, Wearables, and IoT: A Comprehensive Approach to Preventive Care
At Periscope, we work with healthcare stakeholders to develop various solutions, including remote patient monitoring, appointment booking through the web, chat, or IVR, a consolidated provider directory, an EHR API accelerator, and AI-based insurance quote analytics. These solutions are based on four major building blocks involved in an AI & Wearables-based preventive healthcare model:
- Devices
- Data Enrichment
- Data Management
- User Engagement
With the increasing availability of smart devices in low- and middle-income countries, these technologies can potentially transform healthcare delivery and improve health outcomes for all.
- Devices
Smart Devices are the major source of continuous vitals. 45% of Americans already regularly wear smartwatches such as Apple Watches (20%) or Fitbits (16%). A study shows that 70% of people surveyed will use Health Trackers to improve health and save on insurance premiums. The data collected from devices are heterogeneous in nature and need to be normalized and secured.
- Smartwatches, wristbands, and smart fabrics fall under the noninvasive category and customer-preferred choice.
- Disposable, wearable vital sign sensors are beginning to emerge that permit personal, low-cost, continuous monitoring of vital signs for all patients, regardless of health status or location.
