Current healthcare system is a passive mode system. The patient reaches out to the healthcare facility and asks for treatment or opinion to get treated based on a (un)healthy event in his / her life. The future healthcare system is going to be pro-active and "alive" system wherein it will inform the person (potential patient) that based on his/her vital parameters being monitored, she needs to get a consultation or a surgery or a procedure done well within a certain time period to continue with his / her good health. We believe transformation of the current passive healthcare system into a pro-active and alive healthcare system is what the New technologies (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) shall achieve in the times to come. Some of the foreseeable changes in the Healthcare systems are:
Embedding speech recognition in EMR is going to happen soon so that doctors or medical staff do not have to write or enter the diagnosis and prescription in text form. Speech interfacing shall happen wherever diagnosis, prescription, discharge summaries and notes have to be taken for surgeries or OPD consultation. This shall disrupt the medical transcription industry. This is possible with the help of current AI based frameworks.
Constant update (through IoT devices) of patient's health to a central Health Information System (HIS) and to the doctor, if critical (based on embedded intelligence related to required vital parameters). The device itself will send the alerts to the concerned doctor and to the hospital patient care personnel. We will need a new class of employees at the hospitals or health-care monitoring centers who will need to monitor individual patients remotely on a need basis. This is pro-active healthcare instead of passive healthcare system.
the physical presence of a patient is needed to know the vital parameters of the patient. Once they are known in real time through the devices, you may not need visit the doctor, and shall consult him / her right sitting where you are, through an app based appointment system (already in place).
Passive healthcare monitoring shall have 50% relevance in the hospitals, whereas the other 50% shall comprise of pro-active healthcare monitoring for people who subscribe to these services from the hospitals / hospital consultants. Passive healthcare shall also become an assisted healthcare system with more reliance on speech recognition and artificial intelligence tools, requiring medical staff to choose the recommendations and accordingly act. This will have immense impact on various Standard Processes being followed in the hospitals currently, and they are bound to be modified for better and less time consuming care.
Few of the hospitals have already started doing surgeries with the help of robotic arms, that can better analyze the real time data from the patient, and assist the doctor in preparing for the operation as well as in conducting the operation. Even remote surgeries are being experimented with. They will become a norm.
The demography of patients, clinical data, revenues and other relevant data shall be analyzed and presented by the AI systems in terms of segment size and future growth predictions. Accordingly the Hospital Administration can decide to increase or re-orient the staffing / automation in a particular area or segment of the hospital business. The forecasting tools shall become more intelligent and may come close to giving numbers in a few iterative steps with AI based predictions.
IT operations team shall bring a big change in its approach to serve the customer, wherever s/he is. Rather than be accountable for the IT assets and processes within the premises of the hospitals, they shall be responsible for the outcome of the patient-system interactions for the hospitals, both remote as well as within the hospital campus.
The devices like X-Ray, MRI, Analyzer machines shall be intelligent and diagnose their own faults even before they go down, not to mention the recurring maintenance reminders they shall sound out, much before they are required. These IoT based machines shall require little supervision while conducting the normal operations, except that they need someone to do a physical action based on when something goes wrong. Oxygen supply systems shall be IoT based doing the trouble shooting and taking corrective actions themselves. This will impact the servicing and vendor agreements.
Most of the power shall be based on renewable energy which shall consist of Solar panels / Wind Turbines that are IoT enabled giving an accurate forecast of how much power shall be generated in next few hours / days so as to prompt corrective action for the shortfall in power, if any, required. Self-sufficiency of power at all times can be ensured based on these inputs by the engineering staff. Similarly the HVAC systems shall be IoT based, fed with the outcome required at different hours, they will adjust their output themselves requiring minimalist human intervention.
The staff shall be equipped with their own devices that would help them perform their functions efficiently and remotely without the need to be physically present at a specific location within the hospital, except where they are needed to capture the medical data (be it regarding patients or equipment) themselves. This is going to transform their working culture and environment.
The proactive Healthcare system shall inspire the Insurance companies to devise their insurance products from radically different perspective. These products shall add to enhance the customer's experience of the healthcare.
These are some of the ways the Healthcare System shall get transformed into a pro-active system with the rise of these new technologies.
PoleVault is geared up to bring a proactive healthcare at your doorsteps. PoleVault is working on the AI based systems to develop applications that can help patients dig into the details of their health conditions and consult a physician that is appropriate for that condition well within time so that less of emergencies arise.