4 Big Developments in Healthcare Technology during the Pandemic
Advancements in healthcare are dedicated to assisting innovators and the wider population in combating the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is now wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world, claiming lives and causing disruption and transition. During the current COVID-19 crisis, the healthcare industry is at the frontline in every way, and it is critical towards every country and its people. Similarly, every healthcare organization’s top priorities are patient care, protection, information security, and satisfaction. As a result, the industry must remain current with new developments.
Smart technology adoptions and tech-enabled tools can meet the needs in such desperate situations, not just to help streamline processes but also to drive productivity and reduce the burden. Although digital healthcare technologies have been available for some time, the pandemic in 2020 and now 2021 has intensified software adoption, both among patients and among healthcare providers.
Below are the 4 big developments in healthcare technology during the pandemic:
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
By automating routine, time-consuming manual tasks, RPA allows businesses to work smarter. This allows for more efficient use of human capital by involving them in high-value-added tasks while also increasing customer loyalty and engagement.
RPA is now being used in healthcare to help organizations and experts cope with the stress caused by Covid-19 in 2020, when the situation around the world quickly shifted from business as usual to adjusting through a pandemic.
RPA, when combined with Artificial Intelligence, has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry. RPA is applicable to almost every aspect of the healthcare sector, including hospitals and patient care, medical imaging and diagnostics, research and innovation, and insurance and claim processing.
Telehealth Services
Telehealth services can foster interventions to mitigate public health through an increase in social distance during this pandemic. By reducing possible infectious exposures, these programmes can be a better choice for HCPs and patients. They will ease the burden on healthcare systems by reducing the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by healthcare providers and mitigating the increase in patient demand on facilities.
Continued treatment should reduce more adverse effects due to delayed preventive, chronic or routine care, to the greatest extent. For those who are medically or socially fragile, or who do not have available access to providers, remote access to healthcare services can increase participation. When an in-person visit is not possible or practical, remote access will help maintain the patient-provider relationship.
Blockchain
Implementing an interoperable blockchain solution will greatly boost day-to-day operations as well as crisis management, such as the one we are currently experiencing. Healthcare organizations will be better able to standardize their procedures, exchange knowledge with other hospitals, and build predictive models describing the pressure on their finances after COVID-19 with the proper implementation of blockchain at the architectural level.
Currently, COVID-19 blockchain applications include monitoring infectious disease outbreaks, monitoring donations to ensure they get to where they’re required the most, and protecting medical supply chains.
AI chat bots
During the pandemic, the public has seen a greater need for trustworthy healthcare knowledge and guidance, and clinical experts’ time is more valuable than ever. Over the pandemic, the use of artificial intelligence chatbots, which provide patients with critical communication, has increased. Healthcare services have been able to effectively meet more patients and, in some cases, triage their needs by using computer processing to educate and assist them during this period of high information demand.
