Healthcare industry trends and development tech stack for 2020

Being a part of the company which specializes in developing different software for Healthcare (from applications and websites to data management solutions and complex system integrations, including VR and AR development), I decided to gather some stats on what is going on in the healthcare industry. In this material, I will cover the main trends and technical stack for Healthcare software development in 2020.

Some parts of this material were earlier published by me on the UppLabs blog.

With the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, UppLabs (the company I work for) decided to provide a survey to identify the state of the Healthcare industry during the quarantine period. We wanted to find out how the outbreak influenced the state of the industry and what changes business owners were forced to accept. What improvements were taken? What opportunities and risks were revealed?

Besides the survey, we made some research on the state of Healthcare during the pandemic, and here are some important takeaways.

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General trends in Healthcare 2020

• Digitalization in Healthcare is still a challenge. Many businesses face outdated legacy platforms, cost & complexity of new technologies, cybersecurity issues.
• About 60% of US workers in Healthcare say that their work requires manual entry or analysis.
• Trending technologies in Healthcare for 2020 are
  - cloud computing,
  - 5G,
  - AI,
  - NLP,
  - IoMT (Internet of Medical Things).
  They help to streamline healthcare delivery and align it with consumer preferences.
• Most of the businesses say they are thinking of investing in tools and services for identifying the risks and opportunities of implementing virtual healthcare solutions. In other words, more and more of them considering VR.

Healthcare technology trends for 2020

1. Telemedicine (especially with COVID-19 outbreak)
2. IoT or IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) — recently successfully used for remote patient monitoring. IoMT showed its benefits for different wearables for the most common medical measurements, like ECG and EKG monitors. With IoMT, doctors can measure skin temperature, glucose level, blood pressure readings, and more without contacting the patient.
3. AI and ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning are greatly reducing human errors and save costs. These technologies made it possible to use robots to assist surgery, detect frauds, and provide preliminary diagnosis)
4. Remote monitoring and telemetry
5. AR and VR (With the use of sensors, simulators, or transparent displays, AR is beneficial in surgeries, rehabilitation, training, and medical education. VR is used for similar purposes and assists in diagnostics, exposure therapy, rehabilitation, and pain distraction along with AR).

Healthcare development tech stack for 2020

To develop different healthcare (medical) software types like

• Electronic health record (EHR) software
• Hospital management software (different CRMs and more)
• E-prescription software
• Imaging and visualization software
• Diagnostics and therapeutic software
• Embedded medical devices and medical equipment management
• Urgent care applications
• Medical billing

and more, in 2020,

the next technologies are used:

• Java
• Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
• JavaScript
• Python
• Scala
• .NET
• PHP
• C/C++
• Magento
• WordPress
• jQuery
• Bootstrap
• MongoDB
• CSS
• HTML5
• Unity 3D
• Unreal Engine
• Golang

UppLabs survey results

1. Over 80% of respondents represented North America (the USA is one of three countries suffered the most from COVID-19 pandemic)
2. Most of the respondents (32%) represented ambulatory healthcare services. About 17% of respondents were physicians or other healthcare practitioners, 8,3% — biotechnology, 8% — health insurance, about 8% — health equipment.
3. Only 16.7% of Healthcare businesses that took part in the survey were private.
4. “Lack of investment” was the challenge most of the respondents faced — 33%. The next big challenge was “Government issues”. “Problems with vendors” — was on the 3rd place.
5. 91,7% of respondents said that the current situation forced them to consider rethinking the business processes and approaches.
6. 66.7% of respondents don’t use innovations and automatization.
7. 75% of respondents coping with the current (pandemic) situation by adapting innovations to ease the business and operational processes.
8. 58.3% of respondents see great opportunities in the current situation. And less than 30% “hoping for the better”
9. Operational (25%) and business strategy (17%) are the two most popular types of help most of the respondents were looking for in the current situation.

These were the results provided by our respondents in April and May. If you represent Healthcare industry and would like to submit your answers to our survey, you can do it with the following link: https://healthcare.upplabs.com/#survey

What’s next?

To keep doing your business in Healthcare (and in any other industry) you have to provide a contingency plan and consider all the possible risks of your further actions. Take into account the following trends:

• Healthcare remains one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the world.
• Global Healthcare spending could reach over $10 trillion by 2022.
• IoT (The internet of things) can lower the costs of operational and clinical inefficiencies by $100 billion per year. 66% of doctors state that increased use of loT would reduce the costs and the burden on the healthcare system.
• Comparing to the other countries, the US spends twice more on Healthcare.
• The highest percent of using connected health devices by population in the world is 28% in China.
• 3D systems for healthcare solutions improve outcomes that benefit both patients and surgeons.
• Trending IoT solutions in Healthcare:
  – Connected contact lenses
  – Closed-loop insulin delivery
  – CGM and insulin pens
  – Ingestible Connected inhalers sensors

What can you do for your business in Healthcare?

1. Innovate. Use the latest IoT tools to automate your work and connect with your patients
2. Use AI and ML. Work with modern solutions for data analysis and prognosis to prevent diseases and prescribe treatments in advance: AI and ML libraries
3. Stay tuned about compliance and other policies
4. Concentrate on your business.

Thank you for reading!

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