The 15 Next Big Things In Health Tech, From Easier Dialysis To A.I. Ultrasounds – This And More News In Digital Health This Week
Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD
The Medical Futurist, Author of Your Map to the Future, Global Keynote Speaker, and Futurist Researcher
I finally bought my first VR gear: an Oculus Quest 2, and I must admit, it is indeed as good as the hype around it. Or better: I spent 2-3 hours a day since I've had it and am totally in awe. VR technology didn't make it to this list of Health Tech: The 15 Next Big Things – but it should have.
On Thanksgiving week, I'm grateful for your attention throughout the entire year, and I wish you all even more things in your life to be grateful for.
More In This Newsletter: Health Tech: the 15 next big things from easier dialysis to AI ultrasounds; VR treatment for chronic pain gets FDA authorization; Health at a glance 2021 - OECD report; Does the world’s first vaccine robot even makes sense?! – check out this week’s newsletter below!
Take care,
Berci
This is the first time Fast Company collected the best technologies in healthcare by creating the Next Big Things in Tech award. From a new device that makes dialysis less of a burden, through tools for keeping people out of the hospital to a way for people with paralysis to control computers through brain waves, check out which technologies made it to Fast Company's shortlist.
It is always interesting to get another point of view on the technologies I screen regularly. And although I mentioned that I miss VR from here, this is a good set of technologies we al need to know of.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized a virtual reality system as a prescription treatment for chronic back pain. The therapy, called EaseVRx, joins the short list of digital therapeutics cleared by the agency over the past few years.
EaseVRx includes a VR headset and a device that amplifies the sound of the user’s breath to assist in breathing exercises. It uses principles from cognitive behaviour therapy, which aims to help people recognize and understand various thought patterns and emotions. The program addresses pain through relaxation, distraction, and improved awareness of internal signals.
VR is changing the healthcare experience for patients and healthcare professionals alike. As technology will inevitably get more and more affordable, the number of people and institutions will grow. Watch my video on Virtual Reality Could Make Healthcare More Pleasant and find out how else VR contributes to providing better healthcare.
The OECD just released a brochure about its findings around how the pandemic has affected healthcare systems worldwide. COVID-19 has generated enormous human, social and economic costs, and revealed the underlying fragilities of many health systems to withstand shocks. At the same time, additional health spending and COVID-related debt will weigh heavily on budgets, and require careful scrutiny to maximise value for money.
Some notable findings:
- In the 12 OECD countries with vaccination rates above 65%, weekly deaths from COVID-19 have fallen by an average of 86%!
- The amount of people experiencing depression has more than doubled in some countries compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The pandemic stresses the importance of investing more in the years ahead in the health workforce, improving primary care and disease prevention.
This robot is the world’s first autonomous injector – a 'vaxbot', if you like. For now, it’s a working prototype that might take two years or longer to come back to the market, and vaccinations are simply one in all many duties it may doubtlessly carry out. Is this robot really designed to interchange a healthcare skill—even for an activity as seemingly easy as jabbing a vaccine?
Humans seem to have this issue with robots – we tend to be afraid of them. Even more so, people don’t like needles or giving blood. No robot can help overcome that, at least none was able to do so (read what we wrote about this in our article, Would You Let A Robot Take Your Blood Sample?). I wonder if this robot will be able to break the ice.
Perhaps more than in any other field, technology has transformed medicine and healthcare in ways that a mere decade ago would have sounded like pure science fiction. In this book I assessed how technology can continue to provide the dose of humanity that is crucial to effective healthcare, rounding up the technologies and trends that will shape the future of medicine.
Get this paperback version of my book on Amazon to read how tomorrow's potential in healthcare can be ours today.
MORE NEWS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE
FDA VACCINE ROLLOUT – Comparing 17.5 Million Options Shows CDC Got COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Right
A.I. LISTENING TO LUNG CANCER – Respira Labs’ wearable device listens for lung diseases
HILTON ♡ AMAZON – Hilton is Amazon Care's newest client
MEDICAL ROBOTS 2010-2020 – A decade retrospective of medical robotics research from 2010 to 2020
And that’s that for now! Find me on my other channels: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and get more insights on The Medical Futurist website. If you want to support our work, please do so on Patreon 🙌
Thank you,
Berci