How Technology Will Change Healthcare and Insurance Companies in The Next Five Years.

Carlos Zabala
typeiqs
Published in
8 min readJun 25, 2018

It’s no secret to anyone that technology is changing humanity and everything that it represents day after day. Evolution is advancing more and more rapidly, technologically speaking, the world today compared to today’s five years ago has experienced dramatic changes in the good sense.

Just as technology changed the way we communicate, it has facilitated arduous and annoying tasks and made us even reach the moon, it will not be long until each field is soaked and totally changed by the technological advance.

Even though medicine has achieved great things to the point of creating prostheses that connect to bones and nerves, the health system as such is still governed almost entirely by the same rules of decades ago and the same deficiencies and problems have remained despite the passage of time.

The insurance sector despite the fact that it is already an established industry with dozens of years existing, has had its complications to adapt to the digital era, has had its problems to attract new customers and, moreover, have not found a stable way to measure the risk they assume when securing a person.

Based on this, new companies from different parts of the world have already started and designed the first proposals to optimize the health system and modernize the insurance industry. Right now on the internet you can find the first approaches, with very advanced researches and even a few are already applying their knowledge in the real world.

We, as the innovative company that we are, were not only going to sit and watch. For this reason, TypeIQS decided to carry out its own research, assisted by specialists, to then develop an ingenious solution for the optimization of the health system and the modernization of the insurance companies.

The technological advances that in the near future will cause the greatest impact such as Blockchain, Moblie and Web Apps, 5G Technology, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, are, in short, the solution to the problem. As it is such a vast subject, the solutions would be anything but simple.

Being such a controversial issue where so many people intervene, from the patient, to the doctor and ending up in the insurance companies, we decided to look for a word that would serve us as a starting point. What do the patient, the doctors and the insurance companies look for equally and is the only thing they have in common?…

After discussing this with each other and with experts we come to a conclusion, what patients, doctors and insurers are looking for is this: Transparency.

Although it may seem incredible, it is the lack of information, the existence of adulterated medical records, the blurred lines on the part of medical insurers and the unnecessary medical processes, which generates a waste of millions of dollars to people, governments and insurers.

Following this logic, we had to find a way to clarify everything related to medical information making it reliable, accessible, unified and, more importantly, automated. Do you see where the solution is going? the answer is Blockchain.

A more technical explanation will be provided in our following publications. However, we can offer you a brief explanation in return. Blockchain is far from being simply the system by which the famous cryptocurrencies are governed, it is much more than that, and its potential can and must transcend many more areas.

The Blockchain has, in one of its multiple advantages, the ability to clarify and simplify complex processes, eliminate unnecessary third parties in information exchange processes and it can also reduce to ridiculous levels the spaces or faults in the system that a person can benefit from, in a few words, Blockchain it is very unfavorable for people and corrupt processes.

The Blockchain can reactivate the connection between different medical establishments, between different insurers and between medical establishments and insurance companies. This channel of communication is one that in many countries has a long time without functioning, and therefore, generates countless losses of money.

The Blockchain can transform this communication bridge into an almost perfect state, characterized by immediacy and constant updating. It’s just a matter of time before a system like this one is implemented in each country, bringing great benefits and a massive increase in the quality of the country’s health.

Contrary to how many people think, the Blockchain can be modified and adapted to specific requirements. A functional blockchain that can operate in compliance with the rules of the game, respecting and protecting the privacy of all involved and greatly facilitate the task of doctors when it comes to knowing the background of their patients can be designed without much effort.

Although the potential of Blockchain hides different uses of all kinds, this technology alone would not be really effective if it is not accompanied by many others.

5G Technology, for example, aims to be the basis of future communication. Current technologies have not been able to replace the essential communication of a face-to-face conversation, but 5g technology promises to establish a communication that is close enough. That a conversation can have the same effectiveness being both face-to-face and miles away through a computer is an advance that would position humanity in the next phase.

Of all the technologies, Artificial Intelligence is the one that promises the most, and its potential is unlimited. In the case of medicine, robots can be used to, for example, process mountains of data that generate increasingly accurate predictions through constant learning. And this is just one example among thousands, from that to fully automated operations in humans is viable in the near future.

But returning to the subject. Putting ourselves now in the shoes of insurers we can conclude that this system would also bring huge benefits to them. Have a tool that provides the insured’s medical data in such a precise way can, if you treat the data intelligently, give you even a percentage number of the risk that insurers assume when securing someone.

In a system that works under the Blockchain. Insurers can prevent people who want medical insurance can buy it just by lying about their habits and health. As a company, insurers can also avoid the very bad surprise of ending up assuring a huge majority of sick people that end up generating long-term losses.

We already showed you how Blockchain can improve the health system and how it can be extremely useful for insurance companies. And it is understandable that you can think that patients and clients of insurers are being left out of the photo but, surprise, it’s not like that, rather they get the best part. TypeIQS explains how.

Do you remember what the keyword was? Yes, it is transparency. And if you paid attention you will realize that in order for everything else to be fulfilled, the patients and clients of the insurers have to be more open to their doctors and the company that ensures them. But like everything in life, this relationship does not go in only one way…

In the information age where mountains of information are available to everyone, where almost every piece of information about any topic can be provided by the internet, where each process can be standardized and where everything can be measured, it is very difficult to escape from the scope of this phenomenon.

This transparency that the Blockchain generates and that is known is the trend to which the world is directed, necessarily implies that the insurances premiums quotes become a public domain matter. This means that even the most insignificant of pennies you spend would have to be justified by the insurance company, this would be ideal, because it would mean that an insurance company could not give you a price without first showing you why, number by number, costs what it costs.

This in itself already represents a change for the good for customers, increases public confidence in the insurance industry and automatically gives you the certainty that at the moment something happens to you the insurer has committed to cover you.

That’s not all, this system generates a field of infinite possibilities, and revolutionizes the typical conflicting relationship between client and insurance company. The Blockchain along with other technologies would encourage the emergence of deals where everyone wins, for example, it is possible for insurers to reward those who hold healthy habits by offering a more accessible price.

But other technologies, by including them in the equation, can further tip the balance towards an ideal functioning. The creation of a web platform that shows the prices of each medical service in each establishment would end any kind of speculation immediately.

When within the next five years accessories that have the ability to measure your heart rate, your blood sugar level among other things become popular, it is inevitable that a huge pool of data is created. And it is precisely information that is largely absent and the ingredient that for decades has prevented the health system of entire countries from operating without any kind of obstacles.

For these reasons, in the next five years, the beneficiaries of the implementation of the technology would be the insurance companies and the health system. But the great and truly benefited would be the common people.

To conclude it is necessary to clarify that technological progress does not wait for anything or anyone. Only those who see where the world is going and are the first to build something, even something small, will be those who end up acquiring large amounts of money. There is little point in modernizing your house, buying the most technological car and having the most advanced devices if at the end of the day you are under an obsolete system and the streets and urbanizations are not designed to promote the existence of such advances.

The same happens with health, it is curious that nowadays microscopic operations can be performed in the brain of a conscious person but that at the same time the medical history of this same patient has been acquired in a simple paper which can be easily manipulated. As a matter of simple evolution, the health system and, consequently, the insurance industries and people like you and me, whether they like it or not, will undergo a radical change for the better.

Now the question is, in what way are you going to contribute? You’re just going to sit down to watch, or you want to be part of this great change that is coming.

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