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Health providers worldwide need help to meet rising demands and improve operational efficiency because of shortages of workers, increased workloads, and economic pressures.
Globally, workforce shortages, rising duties, and economic pressures pressure healthcare providers to enhance operational efficiencies and innovate care delivery models. Socially conscious healthcare executives are increasingly aware of their responsibility to improve healthcare equality and reduce the sector's carbon footprint for the planet's health. The following healthcare technology trends are expected to gain traction in 2023 to address these challenges and goals.
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AI and workflow automation for addressing workforce shortages
With immediate action, burnout, and staff shortages will strengthen healthcare systems. Some work-related factors contribute to chronic fatigue and diminished effectiveness among U.S. radiologists. In addition to the tension and strain, healthcare professionals are currently confronted with a backlog of routine treatments that were delayed during the pandemic. As a result of these labor shortages, healthcare providers will utilize AI-enabled automation to increase efficiencies and augment staff capabilities.
For instance, radiology departments can increase productivity with AI-powered healthcare technology, enabling faster scan times and higher resolution in imaging modalities. Consequently, radiology departments can scan more patients daily while bolstering diagnostic certainty and enhancing the patient experience. Similarly, AI can increase productivity and reduce intra-user variability in ultrasound use through automatic measurements that spare the healthcare professional tiresome manual labor while allowing them to retain control over diagnostic decision-making.
Automation is a trend in healthcare technology that could reduce the administrative burden of physicians, nurses, and technologists, allowing them to spend more time with patients and less time in front of computer screens. This can include simple but highly impactful workflow enhancements, such as facilitating automatic exports of patient monitoring data directly into electronic medical records—a potential boost to the experience and productivity of the staff.
Continuous education and training to upgrade digital skills
Workflow automation can significantly reduce the workload of overburdened hospital departments. However, healthcare professionals also require the proper training and education to keep up with technological advancements. Since 1 in 5 healthcare personnel has left the field since the pandemic's beginning, it is essential to adequately train new staff to ensure continuity, safety, and quality of care delivery.
As the rate of digital transformation in healthcare accelerates in the coming years, there will be a growing demand for "education as a service" to support ongoing education and continuous learning. In addition, hospitals can promote the proficient use of new and existing technologies by appointing super users who serve as early adopters and ambassadors to whom other staff members can turn with queries or assistance.
How healthcare education is delivered will also change. As healthcare professionals have become accustomed to personalized and convenient digital experiences in other aspects of life, they expect learning experiences to be on-demand and tailored to their requirements. In 2023, blended learning methods will continue to grow, combining the best of in-person training with self-directed online learning—from self-paced seminars like e-learning, webinars, and gamification to more advanced delivery methods like augmented reality and virtual reality.
Interoperable and vendor-neutral information technology solutions
Different systems and devices must be able to "communicate" with one another to create seamless experiences for patients and healthcare professionals as healthcare becomes increasingly interconnected. Typically, hospitals acquire apparatus and devices from numerous vendors, resulting in fragmented digital infrastructure—and, consequently, fragmented healthcare experiences. Increased usage of vendor-neutral and interoperable informatics solutions is anticipated to assist in overcoming this fragmentation beginning in 2023 and beyond.
A centralized radiology operations command center can help distribute expertise across multiple sites and connect imaging equipment from different manufacturers. Consequently, radiology divisions can coordinate and standardize imaging operations across multiple sites, regardless of the installed brand and type of equipment. Using vendor-neutral real-time data analytics and radiology workflow solutions can improve operational performance, reduce costs, and support continuous optimization in the radiology department.
A vendor-neutral medical device integration platform can analyze and aggregate data from a network of connected devices to generate alerts and insights supporting patient care. The greater the ability of such platforms to integrate with hospitals' existing EMR systems and clinical communication and collaboration tools, the greater the value they provide to care teams by providing a more comprehensive view of each patient's health condition. When data flows more readily between interoperable systems and devices, care teams save time they would have otherwise spent retrieving patient information across departments and sites.
Health systems and healthcare technology firms are part of a larger value chain that affects biodiversity via land use conversion, pollution, consumption, and emissions. Health care will continue to adopt 'natural capital accounting' to support better resource management decisions as human health increasingly depends on healthy ecosystems.
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