1. Artificial Intelligence

The traditional manual approaches in healthcare are now being replaced rapidly by Artificial Intelligence. Using AI in healthcare can save time and provide real-time diagnosis, treatment, and disease prevention. Besides, advanced surgery assistance and clinical workflow management are other areas that can benefit from AI. 

For example, PharmEasy connects patients with pharmacies and diagnostic centres for easy and affordable home delivery of medicines and booking lab tests. It uses AI to study customer behaviour and to give a personalized user experience. During the pandemic, it even introduced an AI-BOT for COVID awareness.

2.     Internet of Medical Things

IoMT includes devices embedded with electronics and sensors using software and networks to collect and exchange data. IoMT has made a modern healthcare system accessible to all from the comfort of their homes. It helps in self-monitoring of health and sharing data with healthcare providers. Embedding intelligent functionality in our homes can help in round-the-clock patient monitoring, alerting family and emergency services when needed. The IoMT has four segments

1.     On-body: Smart wearables like Fitbit

2.     In-home: Personal Emergency Response System, Remote Patient Monitoring and video consultations

3.     Community: Point-of-care devices, mobility services, and logistics like drones to offer last-mile delivery

4.     In-hospital: Devices to assist hospitals in managing their assets, personnel, and patient flow

3. Telemedicine

Telemedicine saw its surge during the pandemic. It was rapidly adopted by many governments, healthcare systems, clinicians, and patients. It decongests healthcare facilities from unnecessary hospital visits reducing the chances of nosocomial infections. Elderly, finding it difficult to travel, can be treated remotely. Reduction in bed space requirement and conservation of clinical supplies are other benefits. 

For example, Practo and Lybrate offer digital health solutions connecting patients with doctors worldwide. 

4.    Big Data & Analytics

Adoption of digital technologies by healthcare organizations has led to an exponential rise in health and medical data. This raw data is utilized by med-tech companies to improve patient-based services, enable better treatment methods, detect diseases earlier, and cut down hospital costs. 

mHealth encompasses the use of mobile phones and other wireless technology to deliver medical care. The applications include preventive healthcare services, disease surveillance, treatment support, epidemic outbreak tracking, and chronic disease management. mHealth solutions played a pivotal role in controlling the spread of COVID-19 by enabling contact tracing, surveillance, quarantine control and management, testing, and dissemination of relevant information, as well as immunization cycle tracking and notification.

Healthify me is an example of a mHealth app that provides services such as calorie tracking and advice on nutrition and fitness.

7.     3D Printing

3D printing is gaining immense popularity in the healthcare industry for multiple applications like printing lightweight prosthetics, bionics, and casts for fracture repair. The use of 3-D printed biomaterials ensures improvement in care delivery and time of production with reduced costs. With 3D printing technology, the development of patient-specific models of organs and surgical tools is now possible. Personalized surgical instruments help surgeons to perform well, facilitating faster and less traumatic procedures.

8. Blockchain

Blockchain technology has promising applications in the healthcare industry owing to its security and traceability. Some applications are electronic medical records, remote patient monitoring, pharmaceutical supply chain, and health insurance claims.