By: Tanvi Saha,
Senior Business Manager-Client Relations @CognotaHealthcare
The future of healthcare hinges heavily on digital technologies. The application of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), the internet of things (IoT), robotics, data analytics, blockchain, and cloud computing are making deep inroads into the healthcare sector. The technological interventions are already making their presence felt during the pre-pandemic period. The COVID pandemic has only accelerated it. During the peak period of the pandemic, not only the healthcare system was overwhelmed, but also many critical ailments of patients went untreated owing to fear of infection through physical contact. This has led to an unprecedented shift to virtual health. Moreover, application of digital technologies plugs the shortage of skilled human resources faced by most emerging countries. Given the importance, all stakeholders operating in the healthcare ecosystem are embracing digital technology to create a smart healthcare ecosystem. Especially, the role of AI in healthcare is all pervasive now.
The reason of AI’s rising application in the healthcare sector is its ability to get better with time as more data is fed to the algorithm. Pattern recognition, categorization, anomaly detection, and prediction get better with an AI-powered software solution. As AI uses algorithm and machine learning (ML) to analyse and interpret data for delivering personalized insights and automate repetitive operations, its role in creating a smart healthcare system becomes all the more critical.
Smart hospitals are the need of the hour and AI-powered solutions are increasingly making hospitals smart. An AI-powered automation system, executed through bots, is not only making many repetitive processes automated but also makes the process faster, negating the scope of manual errors & freeing up human resources to concentrate on more important tasks. AI-powered sensors collect critical data from hospital information systems, recognize patterns from the data, and draw insights for better decision-making. New age teleconsultation platforms, that have seen widespread adoption during this pandemic, are capable of storing patient’s treatment history, draw patterns, and collaborate with various stakeholders on a real-time basis because of inbuilt AI-powered solutions. As teleconsultation platforms are increasingly seen as a one-stop solution for providing primary healthcare going ahead, AI-powered solution will be the primary facilitator of this transition.
Similarly, future of healthcare is being redefined by modular hospitals. Through this path breaking technology, portable and scalable structure can be assembled to build smart hospitals in a record time. These modern modular hospitals are powered through various digital technologies such as AI & IoT-enabled solutions for delivering smart healthcare solutions. RFID, infrared sensors, GPS, laser scanners, and other information sensing equipment are being used for better diagnosis, treatment, & management of hospitals.
Another area of application, where a large number of use cases are already available, is medical diagnostics. AI-powered solutions embedded with analytics are already diagnosing diseases like cancer from an early stage from medical imaging. This is leading to detect abnormalities effortlessly apart from faster diagnosis and early treatment.
Digital technologies are also turning medical devices smarter, making the patient monitoring process easier and efficient. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) as a service is on a rise as digital technologies like AI, ML, IoT are embedded on medical devices, which generate a huge amount of data apart from recognising patterns.
We at Cognota Healthcare are embracing digital technologies to provide solutions that are cost-effective apart from enabling efficient patient care by caregivers. Our RPM solution ‘Cognota Command Center’ allows healthcare providers to conduct RPM with real-time data generation in a secured cloud environment. This solution is powered by IoT, and data analytics with future scope of integrated machine learning, making it one of the advanced systems in healthcare space. Cognota is tapping the emerging market dynamics through this new age solution.
Glimpses of rising use cases powered through digital technologies are already visible across the world including the US, India, West Asia and Africa. However, enterprises operating in the healthcare space require the right technology partner to implement these cutting-edge solutions. Seamless integration with the existing IT infrastructure, right maintenance & support, regular updates are keys to successful outcomes whenever new solutions are implemented. Therefore, organisations should collaborate with health tech companies that have a proven track record of efficiently implementing new-age solutions for optimum cost and process efficiency.