In recent years, health technologies replaced traditional medical procedure methods when they became fully applied to many hospitals and laboratories’ clinical routines. These technologies brought more convenience to doctors and medical personnel by improving these procedural times and accuracy.
The improvements and benefits of health technologies are supported by evaluation reports, which are technical documents that gauge each instrument’s characteristics and application in the corresponding medical branch. The areas in which health technologies have had the most impressive and powerful results have been the areas of image-guided therapy and minimally invasive surgery. Although other health industry branches also benefited from using new technologies, in these specific areas, advanced technologies have brought multiple types of advantages.
Regarding the benefits from technologies in image-guided therapies, a standardization of the workflow, excellent image quality, superior accuracy, and a compelling performance have been achieved. On the other hand, minimally invasive surgery benefited from those technologies resulting in less tissue trauma, fewer postoperative complications, and overall cosmetic results.
Improving the Usability of Health Technologies
To be objective, it is also needed to discuss possible complications and difficulties of rapidly improving technologies. Although new technologies bring sizable advantages, their main problems are the long learning periods, the need for supervision by an expert, and the lack of training standards. The report “Increasing complexity of medical technology and consequences for training and outcome of care” of the World Health Organization (WHO) states that the main “battlefield” of health technology is the learning of systems by clinicians.
According to a study published in the British Medical Journal, one in four errors in the operating rooms is caused by technology issues, mainly with the equipment’s configuration and lack of user knowledge. Therefore, it is essential to have intuitive tools that can recalibrate themselves and automatically fix minor glitches without specialists’ help or constant use of extensive technical manuals.
The Impact of Technologies on Productivity and the Economy
All of the improvements mentioned above in health technology have a notable impact on medical centers’ productivity since it is possible to reduce hospital stays and optimize human resources and cut the costs of procedures. New technologies enabled medical institutions to attain rapid laboratory results, access high-quality images, and work simultaneously with the machines. These tools not only improved processes and minimized errors but also increased execution times of procedures.
Additionally, the increase in health technologies’ productivity has a direct economic impact on countries’ economies because it significantly reduces the costs of medical interventions. One of the Health Technology Assessment values, presented by the World Health Organization (WHO), is the cost-effectiveness parameter that gives significant importance to each country’s health care system. This is why many countries are implementing the use of modern technologies in their healthcare systems.
Lastly, most countries that use health technologies heavily report fewer healthcare expenses from the country’s budget. Also, the health technologies’ market can be profitable and beneficial for the National Health System, and innovation in this sector can generate between 10 and 15 percent of economic growth.