Five major development trends and emerging products of smart healthcare in 2018

As the health care industry is facing a transformation, in order to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment, healthcare providers need to make significant investments in processes and technologies to reduce costs, improve the availability of medical services and improve medical care. The main selling point of the current health care trend is to provide care costs and better care services. As healthcare providers face income pressures, they are adopting new care delivery models and turning to outpatient services to reduce administrative and supply costs.

The following is a synthesis of five market technology trends and emerging products:

1. Telemedicine Telemedicine

2, artificial intelligence ArTIficial Intelligence

3, robot RoboTIcs

4. Internet of Things and wearable devices IoT and wearables

5, blockchain Blockchain

First, telemedicine

The demand for telemedicine is increasing because it is a good way to bridge the gap between doctors and patients. The need to reduce medical costs and the increase in the number of elderly patients is also a major factor driving the growth of telemedicine services. According to a recent survey, 77% of consumers are very interested in receiving health care, and 19% have already done so. Whether it is clinical contact with a doctor, health support such as drug-related reminders, health indicators such as Blood Pressure and blood sugar, or daily support to manage ongoing health problems, patients express their willingness to use telemedicine services.

Second, artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) will play an important role in medical care and will become one of the major trends in the future of healthcare. The need for precision medicine and cost reduction will be the main drivers of AI in the medical industry. AI will flip the transformation of healthcare, from hospital workflows to health diagnostics, providing automated processes, streamlining workflow and improving diagnostic accuracy.

According to Frost & Sullivan's research and analysis of medical AI, the AI ​​health market has experienced explosive growth, from $600 million in 2014 to an estimated $6.6 billion in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 40%. According to recent data from the PwC survey, most people are willing to consider choosing to replace human clinician care with AI technology. The following are the people most willing to accept four types of services:

1. Monitor heart condition (such as pulse, blood pressure, electrocardiogram, etc.): 37%.

2. Check and test the heartbeat rhythm and make recommendations based on the results: 35%.

3. Customized recommendations for fitness and health based on personal preferences and health records: 34%.

4. Accept and test the blood sample and provide the result: 30%.

Third, the robot

Robots are transforming the medical world to increase medical productivity and reduce routine errors, thus increasing the demand for medical assistance and automated robots. According to the Research and Markets report, the medical robot market is expected to reach $12.68 billion by 2021, a compound annual growth rate of 21.1% compared to $4.99 billion in 2016. In addition, IDC predicts that by 2020, one in four hospital beds will be equipped with robots to handle time-consuming and labor-intensive work and reduce error rates.

At the same time, medical robots can be used for rehabilitation and physical therapy, such as bionics, exoskeleton robots, next-generation wearable robots to support aged care, autism (ie, empower social skills), and simplified surgery. In fact, surgical robots are the largest market in the medical robot market. Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2025, 80% of surgical operations are likely to be done by robots.

Fourth, the Internet of Things and wearable devices

People will be more and more willing to participate in managing their personal health. Wearable equipment and networking devices are more than ever able to help us choose a healthy lifestyle and address specific diseases such as COPD, arrhythmia, asthma, pain management and more.

According to Gartner, the wearable device technology market will grow 16.7% in 2017, with sales of 310.40 million units. According to forecasts, by 2021, the wearable device market will reach more than 500 million units. According to Research and Markets, the market for wearable medical devices is expected to reach $14.4 billion by 2022, a growth rate of 18.3% from $6.22 billion in 2017.

Here are some of the most popular wearable medical devices:

►Health Smart Watch

►Wearing Continuous Blood Glucose Monitor (CGM)

►Wearing pain management device

►Wearing cardiovascular disease management device

►Wearing EEG EEG monitor

Five, blockchain

Based on the related security risks of message sharing, especially in the aspect of health care, how to reduce hacker cyber attacks and data leakage, and more concerns about health data security. Therefore, the blockchain may be an antidote. According to IDC's survey, by 2020, 20% of healthcare organizations will use blockchains for supply chain management and patient identification. There are also technology giants such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Google that have even invested in the development of blockchain Healthcare Products. Blockchain-based healthcare systems can address challenges such as data interoperability, integrity, security, portability, and more.

in conclusion

Because the medical industry and the automobile industry are very similar, the entry threshold is high, the gross profit is high, the certification time is long, the product life cycle is long, the operation is stable, but the investment period is also long. Although the medical care industry has high gross profit (about 30% on average), high added value and strong demand, some of the relevant regulations are not yet fully understood, and have attracted international ICT technology manufacturers, especially PC and mobile operators. The transformation of the virgin land, including: IBM, Google, Microsoft and other technology giants, is the new blue ocean of our PC industry transformation, have invested a considerable amount of application research and development, in order to hope to have a place in the AI ​​medical application field in the future.

The healthcare industry is embarking on a quiet revolution that will build strong partnerships among all participants in the healthcare value chain and create cost-effective and patient-centric healthcare systems.