Today, the healthcare industry is undergoing a rapid transformation. While it’s still common to see traditional hospitals with long hallways and doctors with pens in their white coats, many new trends are beginning to emerge. From internet-connected devices that monitor your health to machines that can print drugs right at home, there’s a lot of new technology entering the medical world. Here are some of the top healthcare trends within the tech industry.
1) The Internet of Things
In the past, doctors had to induce vomiting with a treatment known as ipecac if a patient happened to ingest something poisonous. In 2019, however, 109,000 cases of children accidentally ate too much medicine and needed medical attention. While this number was low, it’s clear that people frequently misjudge how much of a substance they are ingesting. If only there was a way to monitor the number of pills in a bottle or how many ounces of liquid medicine you had poured into your cup.
Enter The Internet Of Things, which links everyday objects to the internet using sensors that can communicate with one another. For example, if somebody attempts to open a pill bottle, the sensors will recognize there are pills in the bottle and send this information to an internet-connected device. This means that if you’re on Snapchat one night, but your mother doesn’t think you should be online late at night, she would be able to tap into your webcam with her own smartphone and monitor whether or not you’ve taken your meds. This also means that parents can track the medication intake of their children and see if they accidentally misjudge how many pills they’ve ingested.
2) 3D printing
When you think about 3D printing, you may be imagining a plastic toy or decorative mug. However, there’s one field in which people are beginning to use 3D printing technology on a daily basis: medicine. In just the past year, people have been able to print insulin, skin grafts, blood vessels, and even titanium implants that have been placed into patients’ skulls.
In the future, it’s possible that you’ll be able to print your own prescriptions from home and not have to rely on the pharmacy to provide you with your medication. 3D printing technology will allow people to print their own medicine at home that they may need for a medical condition or personal use. Let’s say, for example, someone wanted to stop smoking cigarettes; they could create inhalers filled with nicotine and simply breathe them in whenever they have cravings.