Healthcare Technology Featured Article

October 25, 2014

Health TechZone Week in Review: The New Tools of Medicine


The medical technology market is continually expanding, with new and innovative ways to deliver better patient care, shorter recovery times and reduce the chance of repeated visits. Today's medical centers are incorporating mobile technology and the Internet to deliver medical records to doctors more efficiently than ever. This allows a medical staff to make accurate diagnoses, while apps on patients' smartphones help make sure that the patient is keeping their fitness up to speed. Even over just the past week, new advances in technology are proving to be extremely successful within the medical field, including telemedicine that allows patients to connect with their doctors over video chat platforms.

A recent report from Frost & Sullivan shows that advancements in wound care technology with devices like wound-vacs are paying off, as the wound care market is expected to grow to $11.13 billion by 2017. Wound care is an interesting market because as a more effective procedure is verified, the number of applicable cases where the treatment is helpful also usually increases. A rising global population is also expected to increase the increase in active lifestyles that carry the risk of chronic injury. However, wound care is seen as a way to both reduce hospital stay times as well as reduce the chance of infection, which translates to the patient as the fastest road to recovery possible.

At the same time, telehealth practices are on the rise, so much so that the Affordable Care Act is turning to telehealth provider Teladoc for help. In response, Teladoc added two new board members to the organization to help bring their solutions to a wider audience. Their experience in both medical and technological fields will help ensure that Obamacare will feature access to video health clinics from mobile apps, desktop computer software, and even walk-in kiosks.

In light of the recent fears of outbreaks of diseases like Ebola, many are turning to telemedicine as a way to help reduce the spread of infectious disease. Because telemedicine makes it so that doctors and patients don't need to be in the same room as one another, the chance that a doctor could become infected by a patient drop to zero. Furthermore, telemedicine would allow doctors to speak to and treat more patients in less time, reducing operating expenses as well as the chance that the sick infect others without proper medical instruction.

Finally, the pharmaceutical industry may be treated to big data analysis, thanks to UBIC. Big data is seeing increasingly high usage in the medical industry due to the fact that it allows medical professionals to analyze large amounts of information and categorize them to discover trends among certain groups of people. By isolating what could be increasing these patients' risk of certain ailments, doctors can have a better understanding of how to treat them.



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