- Medical technology refers to the type of technology that deals with the diagnosis, treatment or improving a patient’s wellbeing.
- This type of technology has been gaining a lot of attention and a lot of healthcare institutes have been using and trying to make advancements in this field because of the ease it provides.
- It enables healthcare providers to early and accurately diagnose a person with health problems while improving the outcomes.
- Medical technology plays an essential role in maintaining and restoring life, it has taken a great part in making life easier for various patients helping them with their problems and creating an ease for them for a healthy life ahead.
- Medical technology includes medical and surgical procedures, discovery and the development of drugs and the support system that will provide healthcare whenever and wherever you want.
- Medical technologists are always on the lookout for new advanced ways to make new appliances, apparatus, materials or other articles that can help them in some way or another.
- These devices help the healthcare providers to understand the problem and explain it to the person via technological devices that would be further discussed.
- Some of us already have a clue about “computerized tomography” better known as “CT scan” or “magnetic resonance imaging” also known as “MRI”, both the scans give us images of the internal body structures but MRI is more advanced because it gives us 3D imaging with more detailing, without these facilities it would be quite hard for doctors to study the patient and diagnose them.
- Another example could be “electroencephalogram” “EEG” which makes it easier to study the brain activity of a person or “electrocardiogram” “ECG” which is a simple test that records a person’s heart rate and its electrical activity.
HOW TECHNOLOGY IS EVOLOVING THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY:-
- Ever since humans could do crafting they searched various ways on how to solve and reason with medical problems.
- As far as we know, the first medical and surgical tools were found in the upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic times tracing back to 6000 BCE since then we obviously have came so very far into the depths of medical technological world and overtime made so many complex and sophisticated devices.
SOME FACTS OF MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY:-
- In 2014, 2.3 billion dollars were raised for the production of digital healthcare setup.
- From 2011-2014 almost 1.9 billion dollars were raised by companies aiming for predictive analytics.
- By 2018, 70% of healthcare industry was expected to invest in medical mobile apps.
- An estimated value of 1.3 trillion dollars on mobile applications and wearable healthcare technology which includes smart watches and so forth.
HOW MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY HELPS HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS:-
- Medical technology helps in a lot of different ways it provides a variety of things that aids in specific sectors of healthcare industry.
- There are a lot of changes or advances that have been made in the healthcare industry that are fueled by the evolution that have occurred by technology.
- The major fuel for the rise in medical technology was the pandemic even though medical technologists were already working before but the sudden and the rapid urgency in hospitals all around the world acted as the fuel for rise of medical technology, so this technology is being used to drive changes.
- Some of these are the advancements that medical technology has made in the field of medicine.
TELEHEALTH:-
- Since the early 2020s, the early pandemic there has been a great shift towards Telehealth.
- Telehealth enables patients who do not have the facility to go out and visit a doctor to communicate with a doctor via telehealth, which gives the facility to the patient to have the access to a specialist or a physician, Telehealth ensures that the patient gets the right care at the right place with not much of a hassle.
- Some clinics also offer virtual visits that also enables the patients a lot of ease especially for those who do not have the facility to go outside.
- With telemedicine you can visit your doctor while sitting in your home resting with the ease of just staying on your couch, it is really convenient and has helped a lot of patients during patients and is advancing anymore.
- Telehealth or telemedicine has been the biggest advancements in medical technology in almost 5-10 years.
- A lot of healthcare institutes use zoom or other video call features to provide such services.
- Some of the cons of telehealth includes that there is not a physical examination provided by the doctor which acts as a barrier.
ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS:-
- Electronic health records takes great part in providing aid to healthcare providers.
- It keeps track of all the patients that have been placed in different sectors or different institutions.
- Electronic health records keep all the records about the patient digitalized and it includes things like the following:-
- In care of what doctors are several patients.
- What kind of prescription is provided to patients.
- What are their medical histories.
- What type of problem the patients have related to their health.
- The patients billing process and their health insurance.
- These were some of the records that are kept under Electronic health records, basically digitalized records of a patient medical history and the case they are going through comes under electronic health records.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:-
Artificial intelligence or AI is widely known to help humans in many different phase of life. Approximately every sector of life is helped by artificial intelligence technology. Medical technology uses artificial intelligence in the following ways:-
- Computers backed up by artificial intelligence are extensively used in the medical field.
- Robots that have been made on the science of AI technology are used in the hospital, such robots are used in lifting larger objects and transporting them from one place to the other.
- It also helps in drug discovery and development.
- Helps healthcare providers to diagnose in early age.
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT:-
- Take an example on how inflation is effecting everyone and everything on a wide scale which means drugs or medicines are getting even more costly by the day, as the price goes on increasing pressure increases on healthcare providers to control the price or even reduce it, for this purpose supply chain management would be highly useful.
- Another example is if the medicine you need is unavailable or more costly so an alternative to the medicine would be given to you by the supply chain management technology, basically this technology would be your back up plan or plan B if your medicine is no longer available or it is out of your budget.
OVERVIEW:-
- There are many more medical technologies that are not discussed in this article like “enterprise wide technology” that keeps the track of all your finances that goes in the medical expenses, there is a wide variety and diversity of all the gadgets that supports healthcare providers including X-rays, CT scans, MRI and so forth, so the world of medical technology is extremely deep and the depth keeps increasing as technologists are constantly doing researches on several topics and progressing more and more, so one should expect more surprises in the near future.
- We will constantly see innovations in medical technology and see even more devices using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) or in general the entire medical field which would take this sector of healthcare to the next level.