| | November 20199UTLOOK Healthcare Tech If we think of the early expectations of the computer, from the first productive use of computer technology in healthcare (which was not clinical but around revenue billing) back into the 1970s, the end users never would imagine or have expectations higher than what the technology was capable of doing. Then along comes desktop PCs, the Internet and the first browsers. Somewhere along the 1990s, the expectation of the user began to exceed the expectations of the technology and the challenge was on for the industry.With the ever increasing number of apps for tablets and smart phones, the expectations of the consumer of healthcare will soon cross over to what mobility can bring to the home bedside and what the health profession will have to adapt to providing. Imaging innovation coming in a form of a paper suit that has been lined with electronic ink. You purchase this at your local pharmacy/drug store along with a nanobot programmed bill that you swallow and it is programmed to travel to the portion(s) of your body and transmit signals along its path to be picked up by the suit that sends data to an app on your tablet. Now you have a body scan in the privacy of your home for what could be a third of the price of the same done at some strange center where you did not have to disrobe in a strange place around strange people. Sound far-fetched? The various components exist today and in use at different industries. Some smart individuals need to only piece it together and suddenly you have a disruptive technology that will change the clinical imaging field.The timeline on which innovation is happening is seen by many as becoming rapidly shorten and moving much faster than it has ever done in the past. Perhaps it is our perspective. Think about what the children of the Great Depression saw before they begin to move to the next stage of life: World War, nuclear bombs, computers, penicillin, MRIs, a man walk on the moon, lasers, in vitro fertilization, and the list goes on forever. We are seeing new innovations every day and the children being born today will only see the advances of the past as the standards for tomorrow. Imagine what they will consider innovation and what they will bring into our world! Will they see a disease free world? Will they see a world with faster mending solutions to broken bones or better invasive surgeries? We can only hope and dream but of course, that is where innovations begin is it. HTInnovation has different meanings to different people. The Oxford English dictionary defines innovation as the action or process of innovating. When used as a noun it is a new method, idea, product, etc. Which leads to the reality that innovation in the business of healthcare can come in a form of technology, process, or even strategy. Hence the different meanings that people have of innovation."
< Page 8 | Page 10 >