2019: Healthcare trends to hit the industry ahead

Indian Healthcare sector is evolving rapidly after the introduction of new age technologies. The time has gone when the healthcare industry was just based on doctor and patient interaction and has now reached at the real time engagement without any geographical limitation.

With advances in technology, the healthcare industry is becoming more aware and smart to lead a healthy life. The consciousness of people especially for their health is resulting in the acceptance of more efficient and innovative systems among hospitals and other healthcare providers.

With the continuous adoption of new age technologies, the healthcare industry is going to get through major transformation and claims to accelerate towards “value based care” outcomes.

In the upcoming year, there will be a huge impact on healthcare sector with two of the most hyped technologies – Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain.

AI to drive the sector’s growth

AI works to create a personalized environment for both patients and providers. Today, several companies use AI to streamline their administrative work for increasing efficiency and decreasing bureaucracy. Therefore, many healthcare experts anticipate that operationalising AI across healthcare work management would result in 10-15% increase in productivity in the next 2 years.

In addition, within the AI framework, machine learning will further strengthen human and machine interaction. This would create an impacton, but not limited todiagnostic, risk analytics and drug discovery verticals. According to the estimates of a Frost & Sullivan Survey in 2018, AI for healthcare (IT application) market is expected to cross 1.7 billion by the end of 2019 and projected to achieve CAGR of 68.5% by 2022.

Big Data to result in preventive care

Healthcare industry is getting comfortable with data management. Thus, it is expected to see analytics solutions which will strive to investigate treatment viability, drug utilization, and self-care programs specific to chronic conditions. Moreover, success of healthcare providers will depend upon leveraging analytics capabilities. It is expected that almost 50% of healthcare companies would have resources to access, share and analyze real world data for individual conditions. In addition, several researchers have found that the adoption of big data is projected to touch USD 34.27 billion by 2022.

Blockchain to bring healthcare efficiencies

After several years of hype, Blockchain is finally going to come into deployment to help solve data exchange security problems. Blockchain has the tendency to provide faster access to vast amount of data that provides improved patient experience in just no time.

Blockchain has gained a lot of popularity in the past several years and now the blocks of the technology are going to come together into real commercial implementations. The other ways in which the technology is going to make an impact on healthcare payers and providers are by streamlining and providing transparency in process, eliminating intermediaries wherever possible, providing a guard against counterfeit drugs and reducing unnecessary healthcare costs.

Cloud technology to change the healthcare scenario

Cloud computing has already become one necessity in healthcare sector. Last few years marked the beginning of cloud computing in healthcare industry. The upcoming year clearly focuses upon adopting cloud based computing for more convenient and cost effective healthcare services. Many hospitals are changing their everyday processes by including electronic health records and digital paper filling work.

Cloud computing is set to evolve the way healthcare industry works. It is going to provide the quickest and easiest access to business applications and customer relationship management. Moreover, it offers large storage facility for clinical and non- clinical records with an enhanced security environment.

Innovative Insurance models for preventive healthcare

Insurance models play a crucial role in healthcare payer industry. Undoubtedly, the healthcare insurance policies that are available today do not meet the personalized needs of an individual. To ensure better growth prospects of the industry, companies are focusing on providing personalized healthcare policies that are driven by data and IoT to reduce potential claims.

As per the research estimates of Frost & Sullivan Survey, such innovative policies will enable insurance companies to come up with personalized premium plans by leveraging individual data. The upcoming year in healthcare sector points towards preventive healthcare due to innovative insurance models based on information from healthcare systems and data from sensors, wearables and trackers.

Inputs from Kunal Kishore Dhawan, CEO - Navia Life Care.