Technological Advancements in Healthcare Industry

By: Mamta

Technology may not be the first word that comes to mind when we think of empathy, but with advances in the pharma and healthcare space, technology allows consumers to open up their hearts a little more. Through the development of technology, patients have the opportunity to share their daily health problems with their loved ones and let those closest to them understand what they experience every day. One company at the forefront of this technological exploration is Klick Health. This digital agency has developed a device that can transmit muscle spasms from Parkinson’s patients to others in real-time [1]. Similar technologies have also been developed by other brands, such as GSK’s migraine device, which allows people to experience visual and mental disturbances caused by severe headaches. It is one aspect of technological advancements in healthcare. There is another aspect where we use technology to manage health data in today’s digital world efficiently.

In the healthcare industry, technological advancements have ubiquitously changed the paradigm of medical records from files to digital records. With the digitalization of the healthcare sector, a large volume of real-time data has been generated and stored. It becomes necessary to systematically organize this digital medical data in databases so as to make the best possible of this data for everyone. Further, the medical data could be sensitive, so in addition to the proper management and ease of accessibility of this data, there is an immediate requirement to maintain confidentiality. In the environments like healthcare, where information present is critical and confidential in nature, security becomes the primary aspect. To address these requirements, there is a complete field dedicated to it, which is called as medical information management. It refers to the collection, analyzing and securing of digital medical information. Medical information management becomes more beneficial when medical data shared between healthcare providers and patients are used to improve disease diagnosis, make patients more aware of diseases, and promote self-care [2].

Consider an example of a patient-centered medical information management model. In such models, cloud computing can play an essential role by eliminating the need for personalized hardware resources and reducing power consumption. At the same time, cloud computing remains vulnerable to many types of cyberattacks. One defense method alone cannot protect cloud computing. Information technology methods such as encryption, firewalls, access control mechanisms, and backup systems are used to deal with security issues in cloud computing.

Another technological advancement in healthcare is the application of the Internet of Things. A good example of the Internet of Things used in healthcare is the Kinect HoloLens Assisted Rehabilitation Experience (KHARE) platform [3], which was created by Microsoft Enterprise Services and the National Institute of Occupational Accident Insurance (INAIL) to treat mirror neurons. Another example is Weka’s vaccine smart refrigerator, which solves key issues in vaccine management, such as storing vaccines at recommended temperatures, power reliability, and inventory errors that lead to deterioration. Apart from these benefits, there are some challenges in the medical Internet of Things (MIoT), such as limited memory, computing, and communication capabilities. Further, MIoT is very vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to vulnerabilities built into IoT devices [4].

            Recent advancements in technology are greatly contributing in the development of a robust healthcare system. However, there is no denying the fact that organizations do not invest much in securing and maintaining the privacy of medical data. Data integrity, data usability, data auditing, and patient information privacy are some of the factors that need to be considered while protecting medical data. Further, data anonymization techniques should also be utilized by healthcare providers to maintain the privacy of the patients.

References

1. https://www.klick.com/
2. Lv, Z., & Piccialli, F. (2021). The security of medical data on Internet based on differential privacy technology. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 21(3), 1-18.
3. https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/industry-blog/uncategorized/2017/03/22/human-telemetry-brings-people-back-to-work/
4. Morgan, V., Birtus, M., & Zauskova, A. (2021). Medical Internet of Things-based Healthcare Systems, Wearable Biometric Sensors, and Personalized Clinical Care in Remotely Monitoring and Caring for Confirmed or Suspected COVID-19 Patients. American Journal of Medical Research, 8(1), 81-90.

Cite this article as:

Mamta (2021) Technological Advancements in Healthcare Industry, Insights2Techinfo, pp.1

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• AI and Federated Machine Learning for Smart Healthcare

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