Healthcare trends in 2024

How soon will AI take over the function of a doctor? Will AI robots be able to defeat cancer? Will we be able to use Apple Pro Vision for treatment? How will genetic engineering be used to support patients?
We have prepared for you the top healthcare trends for 2024 and beyond.

Telemedicine

After the 2020 momentum, the telemedicine trend is growing by 23.2% every year. And this growth will continue until 2028.
Medical institutions face a number of problems due to untimely diagnosis. This is due to the increasing pace of life among the population, as well as the centralization of highly qualified medical staff and specialized medical personnel in large cities. As of 2020, 43.8% of the world’s population lived in villages, and by 2050 this figure will decrease to 31.4%. Urbanization issues directly affect the speed and quality of service for remote locations, as well as the average workload of medical staff in large cities.
Therefore, the introduction of telemedicine allows automating and speeding up service processes.
The main goal of telemedicine is to provide patients with high-quality treatment and minimize the complexity of access to medical services. And as a result, it will become the foundation for preventive medicine.

The most active demand for telemedicine is in the United States and Europe, which encourages medical institutions to implement digitalization in healthcare. The use of telemedicine applications as tools for remote patient treatment helps to monitor vital health indicators, receive a therapy plan based on the entered data, and accompany the patient during therapy.

Diagnostic automation, chatbots, and AI tools

With the advent of AI, the optimization of many medical processes has increased dramatically. Symptom checking chatbots are perhaps the most striking example of this automation. Based on artificial intelligence, big data, and algorithms, bots help patients in determining their diagnosis.
Models are being developed that can decipher and analyze MRI scans, blood tests, etc. The further we go, the more these models will become better and more sophisticated.
The advantage of such tools is their round-the-clock availability, as well as the use of extensive databases on various diseases and their treatment protocols. Studies have shown that the diagnostic accuracy of such bots and algorithms is higher than that of a therapist.
However, this is not always the case.
Virtual assistants can tell users about their symptoms and diseases in detail, detect certain diseases only at the initial stages, prevent self-medication, and recommend consulting a doctor.
The use of analytical tools allows hospitals to optimize their operations by reducing data processing time.
However, these algorithms do not take into account other data, such as allergic reactions, weather conditions, the specifics of the patient’s area of residence, etc.

Wearable devices for condition monitoring

Wearable health monitoring devices are growing in popularity. Smartwatches, bracelets, and other types of equipment with built-in biosensors are used to monitor patients’ health around the clock. They provide real-time data on physical activity, heart rate, blood oxygen level, stress, and other indicators. Healthcare gadgets simplify the data tracking procedure for patients with chronic diseases. With the help of special applications, medical wearables connect to the system of a medical institution and transmit current data that is updated daily. The trend of integrating wearable devices and developing applications for them will only grow.
Currently, there are already devices on the market that also monitor stress levels and sleep quality, as well as daily routines, and based on the data, assess productivity and energy levels and provide recommendations. Due to the increased power of new processors in these devices, the speed of data transportation to the cloud, BigData, and artificial intelligence algorithms, the penetration of such devices will increase, especially for the audience that is already interested in preventive medicine. It will also be relevant for the audience that cares about the health of loved ones (parents, elderly relatives, children).
Soon we will see not only devices in the form of smart bracelets, but also new devices from hospitals that will be provided for support and monitoring: blood pressure, sugar, breathing quality, limb activity, etc.

Flexible solutions at the intersection of legacy and innovation

Medical equipment is an investment for decades. The IT industry is developing at a frantic pace. The sudden outbreak of artificial intelligence projects in 2024 is proof of this. But does the business have time to update its equipment fleet in line with current trends? MRI devices, laboratory analyzers, and diagnostic equipment are expensive, so it is logical that annual updates are impossible. However, in the era of digital services, 24/7 medical monitoring, fast delivery of data and diagnostic results, reading and processing data from such equipment is becoming increasingly necessary. A significant number of modern facilities still transfer patient data from equipment manually.
Therefore, tools that enable integration with medical equipment are in demand and will continue to grow. Effective data management and processing in accordance with medical standards and security requirements will require automation of information processing.
Flexible solutions that allow data to be transferred from old devices and sent to the user’s account, as well as provide analytics and forecasts in an automated manner will be in demand for the next 5-10 years.

Electronic medical records and recommendation systems

An electronic health record (EHR) is a necessity for a modern medical organization/service. Recording patient anamnesis, clinical diagnoses, anthropometric measurements, instrumental and laboratory test data, etc. is a growing trend in healthcare management. Any materials can now be added to the EHR: digital photos, graphic images, scanned files. Many of these systems go to the clouds, where data can be viewed by both patients and third-party services (insurance companies, laboratories, or other partners).
By using such tools to serve customers, organizations have control over data, a base of tools to control the quality of services, and flexibility to meet the requirements of healthcare and information security regulators.
In addition, with the growing trend of big data, clinics will be able to process data and provide personalized, relevant offers from partners: pharmaceutical companies, laboratory providers, additional medical services and services.
For clients, this can also include additional personalized recommendations based on their profile from doctors and facilities: for example, recommendations on diet, physical activity, and recommended recovery procedures.

VR та AR

Virtual reality technologies are no longer considered something new or unusual. VR and AR entered the healthcare industry some time ago, changing the way doctors study and treat patients. Medical solutions in the field of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are powerful tools for non-medical treatment and rehabilitation of patients. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global healthcare virtual reality (VR) market was valued at USD 459.0 million in 2021 and is projected to grow from USD 628.0 million in 2022 to USD 6.20 billion by 2029, showing a CAGR of 38.7% during the forecast period. The release of Apple’s VR set is a revolution for today’s digital market. Consequently, requests for VR sets from different companies will increase. For now, the VR and AR trend may be invisible, but in a few years it will become mainstream.

Mobile applications for monitoring health, mental state and related indicators

Water balance control, weight loss evolution, medication reminders, yoga and meditation lessons, etc. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, 46% of American adults experience high levels of stress, so many people are looking for good apps to help alleviate it. Thanks to specialized apps, people can easily make an appointment with a doctor, get a prescription or a referral.
With the help of geolocation, the search for pharmacies and hospitals nearby is significantly faster.
After Covid-19, mobile health apps have become a must-have of our time and are not losing popularity.
Mobile apps are becoming not a fad, but a mandatory tool for communicating with users, both for startups and physical healthcare facilities.
In addition to standard functions, we see mobile apps becoming personal health assistants that accompany patients to achieve certain goals to improve their health. For example, a goal to become more enduring, hardened, or stronger. These assistants will help you remember to exercise, check your heart rate, drink water, etc.

New drugs and artificial intelligence

The development of AI in medicine is not only about deciphering tests but also in the pharmaceutical industry. For the pharmaceutical industry, AI technologies will help develop new drugs, products, and recipes. Thanks to AI, a defined list of data, and algorithms, modernized, better drugs with new chemical bonds can be derived. For example, Atomwise is currently using AI to formulate drug formulas. Another similar project has been developed by Berg Health. The introduction of AI will allow selecting the composition of a drug for a particular patient, taking into account his or her allergies, list of diseases, etc.

Personalized support based on big data and localization

The trend is based on big data, which will take into account the weather outside the window, the region, the outbreak of diseases in it, stress resistance, the current state of mind and health in general. Factors such as allergies, chronic diagnoses, and recent checkups will also be taken into account. For women, the fact of pregnancy will be taken into account, whether they have given birth or not. Based on this, AI assistants will make health recommendations.

The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in the UK has already developed a system that helps to determine the patient’s arrival for MRI. The system analyzes general data about a person, including age and distance of their home from the hospital. The forecast accuracy is 85%.
This allows you to plan procedures so that precious time allotted for diagnosis is not wasted.

Computer vision and IoT

Big data already allows us to identify certain regions and generate statistics on diseases and their causes. For example, a person’s predisposition to disease in a certain region, by genome, and by medical history.
Searching for tumors from images and identifying them accurately will no longer be a problem in the future.
However, we are not talking about diagnostics from an image, but about the latest approaches to patient management.
The need to automate the support of patients and the elderly is only gaining momentum. This is due to the rapid aging of the population in European countries, as well as the shortage of healthcare workers.
Computer vision technologies in combination with modern smart home systems and IoT devices will play the role of caregivers. They will also monitor the behavior and condition of patients, and in case of a risk of a critical situation, call medical personnel to the ward/home.
This is not how we pictured a digital nurse, hey…

New methods and tools in psychology/psychiatry

GlobalData predicts that telehealth will see the greatest growth in the use of telemedicine technologies, but it will not be limited to this. For example, we remember that VR is used in exposure therapy to create virtual environments that can simulate real-life situations that patients may be afraid of or find difficult. Based on this, new special tools will be developed, quite possibly with a combination of AI, which can be used to immerse a person in the situation they were in and work through traumatic experiences.

Development of genetic engineering

Genetic analysis systems work in a similar way to help understand the root cause of a disease. One of the human genome testing platforms, Sophia Genetics, identifies a patient’s predisposition to various diseases and draws the doctor’s attention to it. This genome analysis will have a direct impact on treatment protocols and the depth of the patient’s diagnosis.
Taking into account the experience of crossing certain breeding species of plants, animals, and so on, genetic engineering will be developed in the field of planning and conception of children. That is, it will be possible to plan the date of conception or adjust the development of the fetus with genetic engineering, hormones, and various drugs.

Caring for people with certain levels of inclusion

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people with visual, hearing, or speech impairments. Thanks to artificial intelligence, there will be more and more tools and methods of interaction with services for people with disabilities. For example, visually impaired people will have tools for reading and deciphering text to understand what the conversation is about, what exactly a person is watching on a smartphone. There will be more and more movements and gestures that will allow you to interact with devices, Apple’s Siri and voice assistants in general will improve. Applications will be developed for people with speech impairments that will have speech-aware transcription, etc.
Given the events of today and all military conflicts, there will be a significant number of veterans with limited mobility and lost limbs. The development of modernized prostheses, manufacturing of individual prostheses using a 3D printer, and improvement of interaction with nerve endings and neural impulses for the convenience of users are more relevant than ever. We expect a huge increase in technology in this area, because there is a need for it.

Looking ahead

When we talk about big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, data processing, and computer vision technologies, we can’t help but think of futuristic things:
– Preventing aging.
– Restoration of animal genome and tissues with the help of AI
– 3D printing of organs and their replacement
– Performing surgeries remotely using VR technologies
– Education of healthcare workers through VR/AR applications and platforms
– Neuroimplants and “thought power” control

Although these technologies already exist and are being tested, in 2024 we are unlikely to see signs of their widespread use.

Are they trends – of course they are. But we will feel them only later. And perhaps in other application scenarios.