Technology makes healthcare more 'personalised, precise and effective'
says Philips CEO - Copyright Image supplied by Philips
Healthcare is on the brink of a major
redesign that will give you access to more personalised, precise and effective
care.
For years now, growing ageing populations
and the increase in chronic illness have created a pressing need to rethink the
delivery of healthcare. While new digital technologies have offered answers to
reduce the growing pressure and help transform health systems, widespread
adoption of these technologies has often been slow.
The pandemic, however, has shown that
adoption can move much faster. As lockdown restrictions were introduced,
chances are you started consulting your general practitioner or medical
specialist via messaging app or video call – services falling under what is
referred to as virtual care.
Prior to COVID-19, people said it would
take a decade before such services were widely accepted. The pandemic seemingly
changed that overnight, highlighting how quickly we can embrace new ways of
accessing care and extract greater value from existing technologies.
As healthcare providers and governments
look to fundamentally redesign healthcare – with an urgency intensified by the
pandemic – looking at the potential of other digital technologies offers a
glimpse into the rapidly emerging future of care.
Internet of Things: Connecting patients
for better care
Internet of Things (IoT) devices that
connect to and exchange data with other devices via the internet, has the
potential to herald in a whole new dimension of care delivery and transform the
way you manage your health and wellness – just as the internet has already
transformed so many other parts of our lives.
In the near future, networks of connected
devices such as fitness trackers, wearable sensors and other monitoring devices
will seamlessly connect to each other, collect and interpret data. Many people
are of course already tracking some aspects of their personal health
information, such as their heart rates and daily activity, but receive limited
actionable insights.
As devices become more interconnected and
the insights richer, you will have access to information that empowers you to
better manage your health and well-being.
At the same time, if you have a chronic
condition you will increasingly be able to connect to monitoring devices that
help you manage your condition in your daily environment. You will have access
to personalised feedback and coaching and remain in close contact with
professional caregivers.
Hospitals equipped with such connected
technology will increasingly monitor critically ill patients remotely, in real
time, to spot potential problems early and act on them faster. Such examples
point to a future with an expanding role for care beyond hospital walls.
At Philips, our vision is that healthcare
solutions will increasingly become interconnected to offer real-time decision
support and access to more personalised, precise and effective care. Data
captured by IoT devices will play a critical role.
As the number and usage of IoT devices
continues to grow, so does the amount of data generated by these devices. This provides
the fuel for artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics to generate
relevant and actionable insights.
Artificial intelligence: Enabling
personalised and pro-active care
The amount of clinical data being captured
by today’s health technology is already far too great for medical teams to
evaluate. In addition, healthcare providers are often unable to leverage it in
a meaningful way, as it is cluttered, fragmented and unstructured.
AI – another technology that is already at
our fingertips and developing rapidly − can
help. An AI engine can interpret data billions of times faster than the human
brain. And it can identify subtle events, such as a deteriorating patient.
In the near future, AI will be increasingly
used to analyse real-time data from patient monitors to detect deteriorations
in intensive care unit (ICU) patients, helping to spot potential problems early
and act immediately.
In stroke patients, it can already
automatically detect minute clots in brain CT scans. It’s also already helping
to increase workflow efficiency and enhance diagnostic confidence in, for
example, radiology departments − pre-reading and
prioritising scans to alert radiologists to
“An AI engine can interpret data billions
of times faster than the human brain. And it can identify subtle events, such
as a deteriorating patient.” Frans van Houten, Philips Healthcare
AI will be key to making treatment more
precise and personalised, especially for cancer. Since cancer results from
mutations in our cells’ DNA, a cancer patient and their tumor both have a
unique genetic code.
Using AI to trawl through the genetic
profiles of millions of cancer patients will be critical to deciding on the
most effective therapies and clinical trials.
These developments show how digital technologies
will increasingly play a critical role in assisting care teams to deliver the
best care possible.
Cloud-enabled care every step of the way
We are at the beginning of a healthcare
transformation that will see AI, the Internet of Things, virtual care and other
digital technologies coming together to create highly personalised proactive
care that follows us through every stage of life.
This will cover the end-to-end continuum of
care - from healthy living and disease prevention to diagnosis, treatment, and
care in the home.
In contrast to the one-size-fits-all
solutions of yesterday, healthy lifestyle support will be personalised,
prevention targeted, diagnosis more precise, treatment personalised and
predictive, and home care proactive.
Within these wider, more holistic
ecosystems, both you and your care providers will have access to all the
necessary past, present, and predictive data needed for informed
decision-making, plus the tools to implement timely and effective treatment.
Which is the reason why healthcare is set
to become more personalised, precise and effective, because you will receive
the care you need, when and where you need it.
