The Impact of Technology on Healthcare

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Throughout the years, technology has been revolutionizing medicine and healthcare. With the addition of the 2019 pandemic, recent years have further propelled healthcare into rapid technological development. Not only has the advancement of technology sped up, but the adoption of such technologies has also seen a significant escalation.

How has technology impacted healthcare? Artificial Intelligence, robot-assisted surgery, Nanomedicine, telehealth, virtual healthcare, improved access to medical care, enhanced data management, smart wearables, immediate communication and digitalized records are some of the ways technology has impacted healthcare.

Virtual Patient-Doctor Meetings

‍“Technological advancements in healthcare enabled me to continue my operations throughout the majority of the pandemic. At the beginning of 2020, I adopted a new software called Telehealth, which facilitates virtual meetings between myself and my patients and allows me to provide the care they need from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Through the application of Telehealth, I can reach a wider range of patients from all over the country and am no longer restricted by my location. Patients are happy with the Telehealth services because they save time and money on travel time spent and costs.”

Dr. Robert Applebaum, renowned Plastic Surgeon

Advanced Data Processing

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“Telegenisys is helping to model the progression of rare diseases by extracting procedure and diagnostic codes and phrase matches in clinical notes from each medical record then combining the anonymized data. Researchers are then able to test the effects of their potential treatments against a standard model for the illness.”

Henry J. Cobb, VP Operations Mega Interactive / Telegenisys Inc.

Automated Brain-Imaging for Speedy Stroke Treatment

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“RAPID(r) imaging platform expands options for speedy stroke treatment. When a person suffers a stroke, time is of the essence- every minute counts. Recognizing how vital it is that stroke neurosurgeons and neurologists receive timely information about the type of stroke a person is having so they can decide on the best treatment, Atlantic Health System stroke centers in NJ introduced a cutting-edge technology called RAPID(r). RAPID is a new class of automated brain-imaging software that allows experts to swiftly discern whether a patient has reduced blood flow to the brain and other signs of brain injury. The technology enables them to treat a greater number of patients within the newly expanded 24-hour post-stroke onset window during which surgery and other therapies can be helpful. RAPID provides the most advanced brain imaging to stroke experts. The platform is noteworthy for its ability to shave time from the treatment decision-making process: Images are transmitted from patients’ CTA (computed tomography angiography) and CTP (computed tomography perfusion) to hospital systems and physicians’ smart phones within just minutes. This speed is key when it comes to treating patients, said John M. Hanna, MD, medical director, Comprehensive Stroke Center, Overlook Medical Center/Atlantic Health System, Summit, NJ. Before, processing of the CTA into clinically meaningful images took 15 to 20 minutes. This did not account for the time it took to upload the images into our system. With RAPID, after the CTA is complete, it takes two minutes to send the key images to our phones. Atlantic Health System Neuroscience has been a leader in embracing technology to treat stroke patients with its earlier adoption of the TeleStroke platform. TeleStroke enables EMTs and paramedics to communicate directly with a neurologist while the patient is still being transported by ambulance, facilitating any preparations that need to be made before his or her arrival. Once the patient is in the emergency department, a TeleStroke robot-comprised of a camera and monitor–lets the neurologist see and assess the patient remotely. Based on the success of TeleStroke, acquiring RAPID was the next natural step toward streamlining the diagnosis and treatment process for stroke patients at Atlantic Health System.”

Janina Scheytt Hecht, Public Relations Manager Atlantic Health System Cancer Care & Neuroscience

Using Software and Cloud to manage medical data

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“We’ve seen the potential of healthcare technology – we’ve built some. The largest pediatric urgent care provider in the state of Texas, Urgent Care for Kids, came to us with a problem; their platform was rife with issues. School nurses had to perform excessive data entry, appointments took far too long, and providers struggled to get parental consent through the platform. A major contributor to these issues was the third-party tools the platform was built with; they didn’t allow for a seamless experience. The problems were too ingrained to fix, so Vice Software build Urgent Care a new platform – one that relied on the cloud instead. After intensive UX work and three MVPs, the new software was scalable, flexible, and since it ran on the cloud, extremely inexpensive. The new platform works across time zones, removes redundancies, and allows practitioners to schedule multiple sessions per visit. When COVID-19 hit, the flexibility of the new app was put to the test. Urgent care added a COVID-19 screener, and since schools mandated that all students participating in UIL activities get tested prior, they added features so that dozens of kids could get tested in one session. Without advances in technology, the nearly 500 schools now using Urgent Care for Kids wouldn’t be half as equipped to keep their students healthy – especially during a global pandemic. What this showed us is that technology doesn’t just improve the experience of receiving healthcare, when crises hit, technology saves lives.”

Ryan Vice, Co-founder and CEO of Vice Software

AI Remote Diagnostics

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“Technology is making healthcare more accessible. My company, CureSkin, uses AI technology to diagnose dermatological conditions remotely. We’re then able to send personalized skin care treatments directly to our customers. This makes high-quality dermatological treatment available to people who may be hundreds of miles away from a doctor, and we’re able to treat more patients each day because of the convince and ease of the AI system. This was especially helpful to our customers during the pandemic, when people were unable to leave their homes to seek medical treatments, especially for customers who don’t live near a dermatologist.”

Guna Kakulapati, co-founder & CEO of CureSkin. CureSkin provides personalized treatments for various skin and hair conditions through the use of AI-based skin assessment.

AI for Cancer Diagnostics and Treatment

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“The use of technology in healthcare, specifically in precision oncology, is allowing us to conduct deep patient “profiling” for diagnosis before and during cancer treatment using several modalities, including AI-based imaging, next-generation sequencing, proteomic analysis and single-cell analysis. This gives us a much better understanding of our patients and how they and the tumor evolve over time in order to adapt and change their treatment regimen in real-time.”

CEO of OncoHost; Dr. Ofer Sharon is a physician and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in clinical research, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and has made vital contributions to the acceleration of personalized medicine and oncology drug development.

Intelligent Surgical Systems

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Asensus Surgical, digitizing the interface between the surgeon and patient with its Senhance®️ Surgical System: “Senhance leverages augmented intelligence, machine vision, and deep learning to mitigate unintended and preventable patient complications and provide critical, real-time information to help surgery become more instinctive, more responsive and more focused. This technology enables consistently superior outcomes and sets new standards of patient care. Senhance is powered by its Intelligent Surgical UnitTM (ISUTM), the world’s first and only augmented intelligence system approved by the FDA for use in surgery. Augmented intelligence enables a robotic assisted platform to perceive (computer vision), learn (machine learning) and assist (clinical intelligence) in surgery—providing a true digital surgical assistant for the first time. This technology records an image and applies intelligent algorithms to enhance the surgeon’s ability to meaningfully use information from the surgical field in real-time. The ISU unlocks the future of augmented intelligence features such as computer learning to recognize anatomy and image analytics like the first 3D virtual measurement capability in surgery. Patient Benefits – Senhance is the first platform to offer three-millimeter robotic instruments, the smallest instruments available on a robotic platform, resulting in minimal scarring and smaller incision wounds. Senhance also leverages haptic feedback to monitor and limit forces at the incision site.”

Kate Blom-Lowery Account Supervisor, Public Relations CG Life

Technology in Healthcare Management

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“Tech has come a long way in the health field and it has changed the way we work. There are virtual receptionists now that can answer calls 24/7 and take messages, book appointments, answer FAQ’s, and more. It saves doctors time and money, plus patients are no longer waiting on long holds. Video appointments have also come a long way as well, saving our patient’s commutes and doctor’s time. It will be interesting to see how these continue to play out in 2021.”

Kiran Gollakota, the Co-Founder of Waltham Clinic