Every year that passes brings a new set of priorities and innovations to the healthcare industry. Since the pandemic, the concepts of providing care and doing tasks from a distance have been brought to the forefront. Here are four ways healthcare tech will continue to accomplish these goals in 2022!
Telemedicine Will Become a Fixture
A recent McKinsey & Company report shows that telemedicine has increased 38x since the pre-COVID-19 baseline. It continues to remain a popular option, especially for specialties like mental and behavioral health services, which saw an increase of 6,500% over the course of a year during COVID-19. Now that the pandemic is slowing, however, providers have preferred a hybrid care model where in-person visits are combined with virtual visits to deliver patient care. That’s not to say it’s going anywhere, however. The telemedicine market is predicted to be worth $287.5 billion by 2027, indicating that not only is telemedicine here to stay, but it will also continue to grow in 2022 and beyond.
Electronic Prescribing via EHRs Will Increase
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have become popular because of their ability to provide shareable, highly accurate information. More than this, they’re able to improve patients’ privacy, decrease errors, and improve efficiency. The type of data stored in EHRs has the potential to both assist in automation as well as enhance decisions made in practices. Because of their proven value, experts predict that the EHR market will hit $31.5 billion by 2030. In particular, electronic prescribing (e-prescribing), a feature already available through some EHRs, will trend this year, and for good reason: according to the National Institute of Health, medication errors decreased to 1/7 their previous level, and cost savings were between $140 – $240 billion over the decade since e-prescribing hit the market. Seamless integration of it into more EHRs makes financial sense!
Specialty Digitization Will Rapidly Grow
Digital healthcare trends have become specialty-specific in recent years. Ranging from highly accurate diagnostic tools for exams to virtual reality programs for surgical prep, technology has transformed every specialty and will continue to do so in 2022. Pathologists, for example, no longer rely on viewing samples under a microscope, but rather take high-resolution images to comfortably inspect later on a computer or tablet. In another example, ultrasound technologists can capture images in real-time and send them to a radiologist in another location, who then uses a program that sorts through the images at high speeds to detect abnormalities. Digital implementations like these are not only more convenient for providers, but also make information more accessible for other specialists or researchers.
Remote Patient Monitoring Will Rise in Popularity
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) has the power to predict and address medical issues before they become a serious threat for the patient. This key component in virtual care has been proactively helping treat patients with post-acute and chronic conditions via wearable sensors that alert clinicians to anomalies in the patient’s condition. This trend in healthcare will continue to grow in the upcoming years because it reduces hospital readmissions and allows patients to stay at home independently. In fact, Insider Intelligence predicts that the global RPM systems market will be worth over $1.7 billion by 2027, proving how valuable these tools are for the healthcare industry. Quality of care for providers and quality of life for patients makes remote patient monitoring a win-win for everyone, so expect to see more of it in 2022.
How DocResponse Aids Current Healthcare Tech Trends
When looking at the healthcare tech trends above, it’s clear physicians value ways to efficiently provide quality care and streamline tasks from a distance, and DocResponse does exactly that. Whether it’s their app-free telemedicine software or digital check-in tool complete with a Harvard award-winning diagnostic tool, DocResponse is an innovator of ways to make lives easier for patients and healthcare professionals.
Schedule a demo today to learn more about how DocResponse is the future of healthcare!