In 2019 it was no secret that the technology sector has a major impact on most industries in the world. Our CEO Victor Sarapin shared thoughts with IT ID magazine about main tech trends in healthcare for the next year.
“The main challenge is not in advancing healthtech per se, but to wrap it into an easy-to-understand, simple-to-use, effective product for end-users.”
Growing demand for healthcare and a trend of healthcare consumerization challenge healthcare officials and physicians across the globe. And technology is going to lend a helping hand – from wellness devices & sensors to predictive analytics and operations management. However, the main challenge is not in advancing healthtech per se, but to wrap it into an easy-to-understand, simple-to-use, effective product for end-users. Keep in mind that majority of healthtech target audience is not young geeks and hipsters, but older generation (that is less willing in adopting applications and less keen on exploring and using them) and physicians and healthcare management. So, it’s more about product focus and packaging, UX, adoption and evangelization that will drive landscape change in healthcare systems of the world.
“Knowing the pattern of your flu sick leaves at work and couple of less-significant discriminators, it’s sufficient to know who you are even with no name or SSN.”
Another area of attention is going to be security and privacy – even with all that happens there – social networks, redefinition of what is personal information, news headlines about data leaks, and unexpected use and side effects. I guess, as industry and society, we only dipped our toe into these challenges. So, there will be more and more questions asked there, ways to get and use information one doesn’t want to share, and the ways to defend against such use. After working in healthtech for 10 years, it turns out that trivial approaches don’t work here: on the one hand, there’s a need to know more and more about population and about the individual to provide quality and cost-effective care (and prevent adverse health issues as early as possible), and on the other hand, there’s a growing need to protect these data and derived results from misuse – intentional or not. Health data is extremely sensitive – and often irrevocable, similar to biometric data. In other words, knowing the pattern of your flu sick leaves at work and a couple of less significant discriminators, it’s sufficient to know who you are even with no name or SSN. So, there’s a need for better handling of such kinds of things in the IT systems of today and beyond.
Surely there’s going to be not only voice – wellness bracelets, home sensors, and other devices are already part of a lifestyle, and more applications are going to follow – from movement and fitness trackers and smart pill dispensers to home- or area-wide labs and appliances, with data engineering and analytics security specialists and old good hardware and software engineers powering the party.
And it is both pride and thrill for me and VITech to be on the cutting edge of these works – preventing lethal heart attack less than an hour before it happens or capturing oncology on the earliest stage possible due to systemic and usable care management. Having one of the largest continuous care datasets on a globe under our fingertips, we have plenty of work to do.
