Top Five Trends in Healthcare to Look out for in 2023
Healthcare institutions have been pushed to the brink in recent years, but with many innovations and developments, healthcare is better than ever. The rise of healthcare technology and a remote-first environment in the past few years are leading the industry and patients to find more meaningful and direct assistance for various services.
Healthcare institutions have been pushed to the brink in recent years, but with many innovations and developments, healthcare is better than ever. The rise of healthcare technology and a remote-first environment in the past few years are leading the industry and patients to find more meaningful and direct assistance for various services. These innovations have drastically changed the healthcare industry and enabled institutions to find better ways to help patients from afar. Here are the top trends we’re seeing and predict will be prevalent into 2023:
- Telehealth is here to stay
In the past, telehealth and similar services have been blocked behind insurance coverage. With patients left to pay out of pocket, it was widely left out of people’s options. However, through the mass adoption of remote services in the last few years, telehealth has been added to most coverage by major insurance companies and increased in popularity drastically.
One advancement that has contributed to the success of telehealth is wearable technology. Patients were already wearing gadgets such as Fitbit, Apple watches, and other smartwatches capable of monitoring useful medical data. Without further testing, some devices can send doctors useful data like heart rate monitoring, exercise rates, sleep habits, and temperature readings. According to WSJ, Apple is developing a watch feature to monitor blood pressure, and surely competitors will follow suit soon after.
Companies like Omron have developed specialized home equipment to monitor blood pressure to transmit to telehealth doctors. These metrics enable doctors to glimpse their patient’s health without a visit to the office, allowing for faster and more accurate care from afar.
- AI and VR Technologies are transforming the field
Technology in healthcare is constantly evolving, but the pandemic has sped up nearly all levels of tech within healthcare. Artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) innovations have allowed healthcare professionals to learn and adapt easily. Technology like the DaVinci surgical robot system has allowed complicated surgeries like laparoscopic surgery to be done more precisely. Utilizing a robot gives surgeons three main benefits: an improved view, more ergonomic motion, and reduced hand tremors.
Virtual reality has the added benefit of doctors communicating with others to give real-time recommendations, label different anatomy, and practice procedures. These technologies allow doctors to help one another and learn more effectively.
New developments have benefited doctors in detecting health issues in earlier stages. One improved development is mammography scans. Hologic has developed a new detection method called Genius AI, which detects potential cancers through breast tomosynthesis images. This helps radiologists detect cancers with a lessened risk of complications and reoccurring cancer.
- Employee Retention has become paramount
To combat an ongoing labor shortage, many solutions were developed or improved to help with employee retention across the board. Electronic Health Record (EHR) software has allowed for a better workflow and increased efficiency in healthcare settings, giving employees more reasons to stay on. Hospitals have been utilizing this through companies like Epic that have software to help reduce EHR workloads. Employees benefit from the software being able to compile patient data and provide real-time insight. According to the CDC, through patient records, the software discovered that patients who were prescribed Paxlovid were 51% less likely to be hospitalized within 30 days after a COVID diagnosis.
Insights like these can give doctors and nurses the necessary analysis without going through hundreds of patient files. Online plugins added to EHR software streamline workflow and allow care management roles to have more time caring for their patients and less time inputting data.
- Mental Health help will continue to grow
Mental health professionals have always been tough to find and have the courage to seek out. With the rise of mediation apps, teletherapy, and mental health resources, more people than ever are seeking and finding the help they need.
Previous stigmas shrouding mental health caused people not to seek help out of embarrassment or shame. But after extended lockdown and isolation periods, more people began to realize the implications and importance of mental health. Through that time, they sought to talk to experts through teletherapy. Now it is easier than ever to find real results via applications and clinics with real-world results. Services like BetterHelp connect over two million patients with a wide network of specialists via teletherapy.
- Retail Health is more accessible than ever
Over the last few years, there has been a rapid increase in the use of healthcare institutions like urgent care and minute clinics. Patients no longer have to go directly to a hospital or primary care physician and wait for hours. Now, with a few google searches, they can find an appointment with the many fast health services in their area.
In these specialized clinics, patients can find various diagnostic services and solutions. With healthcare companies now fully adopting the coverage of these clinics, retail stores like Walgreens and CVS have begun opening their clinics. These retail clinics offer vaccinations for different sicknesses, testing, and prescription services. It has become a one-stop shop for a wide range of services—tailoring the patient experience depending on the treatment. If the sickness is too advanced for these small form-factor clinics, they recommend hospital admittance. This creates a more accessible and less arduous experience for patients.
As healthcare professionals and patients look towards 2023, the innovations in these areas will only continue. Never before have patients had such a wide variety of services at their fingertips. Doctors’ lives only get easier as technologies like Genius AI and DaVinci robots make workloads more manageable. Time will tell what new challenges the healthcare industry will face, but 2023 will be prepared to take it on.