Digital Health:

Augmented Reality will enhance the medical procedures

21st-century technology revolutionized Healthcare Industry, paving its way in Augmented Reality & interactive Virtual Reality (VR) to revamp healthcare education and radiology. Recent technology advancement shows how augmented reality can enable faster operations and better care. It can aid in medical education by training physicians without dissecting a cadaver, an interactive VR can aid a doctor to increase its clinical knowledge.

Through robust 3D training tool offered by companies like 3D4Medical, based on augmented reality, doctors can learn about anatomy without being present with the real corpse. With this technology, one can interact with a 3D representation of the body in an intuitive way. One can reach out and touch the body parts virtually, which assist them to know the things better as in real world. This modern way of learning helps the surgeon to eliminate the problems, faced earlier, to teach a student in a real environment.

Another interesting tool used by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is called Echopixel, based on interactive VR. Dr. Judy Yee, Professor and Vice Chair of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging in UCSF School of Medicine, has spent decades studying medical scans, trying to make sense of 3-D problems on a flat screen. Echopixel, a breakthrough technology is making her job a lot easier. It takes data from CT and MRI scans and transforms into 3-D holographic images, where she can view and interact with patient tissues and organs as if they were real physical objects. Medical 3-D imaging is not new, but the way organs appear to pop out of the screen, and the ease at which the anatomy can be manipulated has never been seen before in medicine.

Note: Medicine is one of the industries that provides tangible real world benefit to help people live better lives, and VR & AR can help immensely.

  Top Applications of VR in Healthcare  

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Surgical Training: VirtaMed develops and produces highly realistic surgical simulators for medical training. Surgeons use original instruments to train in a safe environment before performing surgeries on patients.

Psycho Therapy: Psious is using VR technology to bring value into the mental health community by helping individuals cope with fears and phobias though simulation of scenarios

Patient Communication: Fusion Tech is establishing a platform to teach patients about their conditions and show them how their treatments will work in a 3D simulation.

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Medical Device: 

Intelligent Medical Devices like Artificial Pancreas can enhance the quality of life of patients

The artificial pancreas is a technology in development to help people with diabetes automatically control their blood glucose level by providing the substitute endocrine functionality of a healthy pancreas. In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the world’s first artificial pancreas. Medtronic’s MiniMed 670G hybrid closed looped system, the first FDA-approved device that is intended to automatically monitor glucose (sugar) and provide appropriate basal insulin doses in people 14 years of age and older with type 1 diabetes. It basically replicates what a healthy version of the organ does on its own, and it enables diabetes patients to live an easier life in a sustainable way. It is the biggest step towards a new era in diabetes management in years.

The breakthrough happened years after the #wearenotwaiting movement started to campaign for the introduction of such artificial pancreas on the market. In 2017, this new way of diabetes management will spread around; and it will become a life-changing milestone in many patients’ lives when they first start to use the device.

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Medical Devices have significantly improved in the past decade, from measuring parameters of the physiology and supporting the functional aspects of the body, to being functional or replacement to an organ or system. According to McKinsey, worldwide sales of medical devices rose to 380 Bn USD last year from 260 Bn USD in 2006. Medical device firms are finding novel functionalities for various functional disorders of the Human Body. With the advancement in technology like Sensors (Wearables and IoT), Cloud based applications (Analytics and operational decision support), embedded bioelectronic implants (Continuous monitoring and support) medical device industry would see a rapid growth by addressing new requirements.

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  3 Facts About Diabetes - World Health Organization 

• Type 1 diabetes is characterized by a lack of insulin production and type 2 diabetes results from the body's ineffective use of insulin
• Type 2 diabetes is much more common than type 1 diabetes and accounts for around 90% of all diabetes worldwide.
• 80% of diabetes deaths are now occurring in low- and middle-income 

 

 

Healthcare Management:

Efficient Supply Chain Operations in Healthcare will drive down cost and improve quality

Healthcare is one of the notable, rapidly growing industries globally. It includes various segments such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals, information technology, and services, all of which are developing at a fast pace. According to “Healthcare Supply Chain Network (HCSN) -  Healthcare Supply Chain Management market (HCSCM) is expected to reach 2.4 Bn USD by 2022 from 1.5 Bn USD in 2016, growing at a CAGR of 8.7%.

Factors driving the growth of the HCSCM 

• The Unique Device Identification (UDI) initiative by the FDA
• Rising adoption of cloud-based solutions
• Increasing pressure faced by hospitals to improve operational efficiency and profitability
• Compliance with the G1 system standards in various countries 

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The need for greater superior supply chain efficiencies, adoption of ERP tools, mobile-based solutions and counterfeiting of drugs in the pharmaceutical industry are expected to offer significant growth opportunities for players in the HSCM market. On the other hand, the high price of the SCM software and the fragmented end-user market are expected to restrain the growth of this market.

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• Provide access and financial protection at secondary and tertiary care levels, the policy proposes free drugs, free diagnostics, and free emergency care services in all public hospitals 
• Raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP in a time bound manner 
• Emphasize reorienting and strengthening the Public Health Institutions across the country, to provide universal access to free drugs, diagnostics, and other essential healthcare
• Envisages school health programs as a major focus area as also health and hygiene being made a part of the school curriculum.
• Advocates extensive deployment of digital tools for improving the efficiency and outcome of the healthcare system 

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