The COVID-19 crisis has created the requirements for the quick action and the enablement of a strong, concerted, scalable, and responsive digital healthcare infrastructure. The pandemic has showcased a reality check for many facets of medical systems, especially concerning their readiness. To come up with an effectual strategy and transformation roadmap, stakeholders in the healthcare industry will require considering the following key factors.

A) Shifting Patients to Remote Care

Remote care services were already utilized in routine care, emergencies and crises. During the pandemic, their extensive usage has accelerated. Tele-health services have now been applied in the large-scale patient screening before their visit and assessment. They are used for the routine monitoring of patients right at home, for the remote medical encounter, or tracking patient care.

It is expected and likely that a substantial portion of such services will remain telehealth based in post COVID era. These services can remotely monitor and manage more numbers of patients, as it offers handiness and enhances patient-centred care, thus partially enabling the healthcare system flow rate and solving the capacity problems.

B) AI & ML Transforming Healthcare

Artificial intelligence (AI) has seen swift innovations over the last few years and is identifying its ways into domains of healthcare, pharmaceutical and life sciences. Healthcare and Pharma companies are looking to invest in committed AI startups that will offer them the cutting edge over their competitors in medicine discovery and R&D procedures. 

More than ever, AI in Healthcare and machine learning have been one of the most capable and disruptive developments of advanced digital technology. If used precisely, they can enable care providers to make definitive diagnoses, offer enhanced patient care and advance access to healthcare.

C) Operational Analytics will See Growth

Technology solutions addressing operational analytics and workflow automation will see more growth in the post-Covid era. For illustration, GE Healthcare’s industry-first, FDA-cleared Critical Care Suite AI tool will assist radiologists prioritize vital cases.

D) Digital Acceptance

With the telemedicine market predicted to grow, overcoming the challenges of digital acceptance and adoption which is the correct thing to do from both patient care and medical stakeholder’s viewpoint, telemedicine services need to be quickly scaled up.

E) Stepping Up of Digital Development

The digital development stepped up by the COVID-19 pandemic will have wide-ranging effects across policies for the below three components.

◉ For Patients: There will be an urgent requirement to reduce, ease, or eradicate co-pay for medical treatment and reassess cover charges for COVID-19.

◉ For Providers: The focus is already transforming towards facilitating swift and secure online visits to physicians, accessibility of online testing and at-home preventative medical care.

◉ For Medical Authorities & Governments: These developments will generate the requirements for steady regulatory guidance for the healthcare sector, allied patient health management programs that will work on Medicaid and Medicare patients.

F) Alertness towards Health Insurance

The COVID-19 emergency has led to more alertness among people towards health insurance, and the mainstream of them now consider it as a requisite to be future-ready for unanticipated scenarios like this, as per surveys by diverse healthcare bodies.

G) Graduate Public Health Education and Learning

The disruption of education because of COVID-19 has introduced new challenges but also increased innovations.  Healthcare stakeholders agree and view an opportunity to refine the role of graduate education to build the subsequent generation of public health executives. The three modifications that should be further developed and continued in the future include the extensive use of educational technology, a special embracement of trauma-informed pedagogy and the change from teaching as a solo job to a collective system which will be highly advantageous.

H) Medical Staffing Problems

The clinician heroes on the COVID-19 front lines will require recruitment support in the coming time. In the meantime, recruiting may turn more complicated with young medical professionals signing up for what COVID-19 healthcare teams are facing currently.

I) Complexity of Supply Chains

This pandemic has uncovered the complexity of supply chains and their breakdown in the healthcare domains worldwide. One of the solutions in the post-COVID era will be to return to regional value chains as a substitute for global ones for a specific time period to share potential supply chain risks.

J) Security Concern

The security concern, for instance, the occurrence of Zoom-bombing, is applicable to both medical staff and patients while facilitating the new remote services. Hence, technology-empowered healthcare methodologies must be implemented, preserving the privacy of their diverse applicants.

Moving Forward

The COVID-19 outbreak serves as an alarm that hands-on planning for medical care emergencies and commitment to worldwide public health vigilance remains essential. The tough lessons learned on the limits of existing healthcare systems and their competence to respond to transferable disease outbreak in the 21st century should be measured and evaluated, to facilitate the transformation of upcoming healthcare procedures.

A robust digital healthcare system developed for compliance with changing regulations has a lot to deliver, including better interactions, communication and efficiency with the help of bots, telemedicine platforms, VR and Augmented Reality (AR) in Healthcare.

At APRICUS MED-TECH, our mission is to facilitate medical professionals in improving the global patient-care experiences through AI and AR in Healthcare. We will be accelerating our services so that medical stakeholders can take the help of modernized technologies in enabling their future healthcare processes.