Smart Hospital and Unified Data
TEAMS trend research: Medical 2025 — Part III
Read the first part here, and the second part here
Get smart!
- Smart hospitals are based on fluid communication, sharing goods and services and the combination of new information communication technologies, robotics and intelligent transport.-
Technology has influenced many aspects of our life. Today’s healthcare system is also affected by these technological improvements which help the patient to experience both, inside their facilities, and out through a keen focus on connectivity, communication, and access to information.
Life expectancy on the planet is increasing. According to a report from the United Nations Population Information Network, the increase will raise more through 2050. This will affect the hospital of the future. With technological advances, the hospital sector aims to manage clinical, financial and operational information to increase the efficiency. For that reason, the concept of Smart Hospital is getting enormous commercial interest. According to the forecast, in the time between 2018–2023, the global Smart Hospital Market will proliferate. Over 25% of CAGR, and is expected to reach 62 USD billion by the end of the forecast period.
With this market pressure, new approaches are evolving to provide people with better care. For instance, patient monitoring systems, computer-assisted surgical systems, 3D mapping, cross-sector telemedicine, robotics, artificial intelligence.
- The notion of Smart Hospital is to create a single IT environment and balance clinical outcome, supply chain efficiency and strong patient/provider experience via technology.-
Unified data is one of the key tools to create a smart hospital environment. This tool enables the capture, storage, management and analysis of information. Health data is growing drastically, the reason why the potential for unified data is leading to better outcomes.
The advantages of unified data create an opportunity for detecting diseases early. It allows managing specific individual and population health, as well as detecting healthcare fraud more quickly and effectively. According to McKinsey, big data analytics can help to save more than $300 billion per year in U.S. healthcare.
No more paperwork
The hospital of the future is characterized by increased connectivity and transparency. By digitizing many of the analog processes, great improvements in terms of efficiency and reliability will be visible. Unified digital health records are already available today and will further advance, giving medical personnel extended insights into the patients’ health history, and will not only streamline medical procedures but also admirative tasks in the hospital.
Further implementation of IT-services will improve patient flow management, payer analytics, clinical decision support, and medication administration. While regulatory hurdles and big questions like data protection, veracity and interoperability need to be overcome, we will eventually see wide adoption of those new digital technologies.
The potential of technology helps healthcare to a better outcome. Moreover, it creates smart environments to enable health tracking and receiving a better health service. The purpose of unified I.T. environments is to improve and optimize the existing processes and open new opportunities for the health sector.
-The digitization of health-data is enabling new forms of diagnostics and treatment. Unified access to health data will revolutionize communications between doctors and patients and will fuel collaboration of specialists from different fields.-
The amount of data collected in healthcare enables doctors, researchers, and nurses to improve the quality of their work drastically. Not only will they have better access to the newest insights in research, new forms of treatment and diagnostics, but they will also have digital tools that will enable them to actually use that information.
Similar technologies that allow companies like Amazon to know what you want before you buy it, and to suggest relevant products will slowly but steady move into the healthcare sector.
Digital assistants will monitor patients to detect future illnesses at an early stage, will suggest possible approaches and relevant information when treating complex diseases and recommend specialists for further treatment. Like Google has given access to cartographic material of our planet, we will see similar tools that provide us increasingly detailed access to our body. The design of these tools will define how safely and reliably patients will interact with these services. Furthermore, design will play the main role in creating trust in such disruptive technologies.
Positive clinical experience
Healing and recovery are complex and multi-layered processes that aside from the traditional medical treatment are influenced by wellbeing and relaxation. More attention will be paid towards a comfortable atmosphere and pleasant user experience.
Reduction of disturbing and stressful environments will reduce stress and anxiety in the patient while to benefit patients and staff. Medical equipment and tools will represent a high level of professionalism and quality on one hand while creating a sense of familiarity and personality on the other hand.
Automation and robotic assistance
In order to drive down healthcare expenses, we will see increasing automation of simple tasks, including the use of lab-robots to automate the processing of samples, or hospital logistic-robots assisting staff in the delivery of meals or other goods. On the other hand, we will see surgical robots enabling surgeons to perform more complex operations. Paired with extended or augmented reality visualization new forms those technologies will expand human capabilities in terms of accuracy and reliability. The progress in healthcare will not be about replacing people and their profession, but about empowering them through technology.
This is the last chapter of three-chapter research that we, at TEAMS Design, conducted to discuss future trends in the health care industry and how design can help to build new possibilities. If you would like to get the complete report or more insights about our research, let’s get in touch!
Research sources:
- Markus Wild (2018) Point of Care — und weitere Trends im Medical Design
- CATHERINE STURMAN (2018) Novartis Social Business: Blending profit with purpose.
- BILL TRIBE AND ERIK BLAZIC, A.T. KEARNEY (2017) Roadmap to a Connected Digital Healthcare Future.
- Sujan Rajbhandary (2018) BUSINESS VALUATION & FINANCIAL ADVISORY SERVICES Sujan Rajbhandary, CFA sujanr@mercercapital.com Atticus Frank franka@mercercapital.com www.mercercapital.com Trends to Watch in the Medical Device Industry in 2018, N.A: N.A.
- Accenture Consulting (2018) DIGITAL HEALTH TECH VISION 2018 Intelligent Enterprise Unleashed, N.A: N.A.
- Dana Merchel, Albert Ibragimov, Claudia Krettler, published by Markus Wild (2018) MEDICAL DESIGN TREND UPDATE 2018, N.A: N.A.
- Stephanie Newkirchen, Christopher B. Harris,Sam Vos, Sarah Danielson, Kathi Phares and Santosh Chavan (2018) EHR convergence and interoperability: A key strategic question for health care providers, Deloitte: N.A.
- Sonia Marti (2017) Do you know Smart Hospitals?
- G Eysenbach (2001) What is e-health?, Online: N.A.
- PwC Health Research Institute (2018) Top health industry issues of 2018 A year for resilience amid uncertainty In, N.A: N.A.
