How Embracing the Technology Can HelpReduce Healthcare Costs

The increasing demand for healthcare and the rise of new digital technologies has brought in some revolutionary changes to the healthcare industry in the recent years. Everything from advanced robotics and 3D printingto Big Data is being integrated into the sector to improve patient care and efficiency. Indeed, science and technology are the key enablers in exploring new ways to increase the efficiency and quality of healthcare. Innovative solutions using technology can play a key role in advancing disease prevention, expedite diagnosis, and enable remote patient monitoring that reduces healthcare cost and time considerably. In that sense, the healthcare industry today is embracing technology across the patient-care continuum to mitigate the constantly rising healthcare costs.

In today’s healthcare market that is financially stretched, medical technology is often seen as an expensive and luxurious commodity. However, the use of the ‘right’ technology in healthcare can actually cut down the overall cost of treatment and thereby help improve patient outcomes and operational efficiency. New technological developments in healthcare domain have the potential to solve so many existing problems in the sector, bringing in more efficient products and services, reducing the demand for physical services, enabling the efficient use of capacities of suppliers, and potentially lowering the cost of healthcare.

Technology Helps Expedite Diagnosis:

The increasing healthcare demand along with the rise of non-communicable diseases have placed a high-cost burden on the healthcare system. As such, it is necessary that early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention help reduce serious medical complications that could turn out to be expensive later. So, sooner the healthcare professionals diagnose, treat, and/or prevent medical conditions in patients, the more benefit they can achieve in reducing the cost burden. This paves way for medical tech companies with immense opportunities to bring about potential solutions that can expedite the diagnosis procedure.

With technology, an invasive and time-consuming procedure can be made simple and efficient by the use of ‘virtual’ pathology and enhanced visualization that allows diagnosing patients in real time, thus negating the need for lengthy processes. Similar developments in laser technology, imaging, miniature actuators and MRI-based virtual colonoscopies can provide a more comfortable and patient-friendly diagnosis for various medical conditions. Thus, new breakthrough technologies when embraced by healthcare industry can deliver considerable benefit with cost-saving spread over the course of the treatment or the lifetime of the patient.

Technology Helps Reduce Demand:

New technologies that focus more on prevention and maintenance of medical conditions could help reduce the healthcare demand in future. A preventive approach in the patient care would reduce the risk of diseases and thereby the future demand for expensive treatments would drop. With wearable technology, more and more apps and wearables are introduced to patients to keep them healthy. It can help track heartbeat, stress levels, blood pressure, as well as suggest anything from simple breathing exercises to relieve tension to medications for several medical conditions. The long-term goal of keeping people healthy using technology can leave significant marks on healthcare cost in near future.

Technology Enables Remote and Real-Time Monitoring

Telemedicine or ‘Connected health’ or ‘e-health’ is the use of digital technology to monitor and manage patient condition remotely. Internet connectivity power,when combined with smart sensing technologies, can create connected health technologies that could help reduce healthcare costs by reducing frequent hospital visits and readmission. With advanced developments in the user interface, data processing, storage, and analytics, healthcare professionals can remotely monitor and interpret patient health and administer dosages accordingly. In short, the use of technology enables convenience and enhanced treatment for patients, bringing healthcare one step closer to providing efficiency at reduced cost.

New technologies can deliver both quantitative and qualitative impact on healthcare. The increasing focus on value and cost reduction in healthcarehave paved way for innovative technological solutions to emerge in the sphere. With the right technology in use, the healthcare sector can provide faster, economical, and more effective treatments in a multidisciplinary perspective.

Adopting new technological advances can be heralded as a cost-cutting savior for the healthcare industry to explore new opportunities. Clearly, the healthcare industry gives way for innovation through tech-enabled models to deliver a continuum of care that ensures consumers and healthcare providers gain a lot from the benefit of cost and efficiency by embracing new technology.

In that sense, it is necessary for healthcare professionals of the coming generation to have ample knowledge about both technology and healthcare. This is why healthcare management organizations today are incorporating technology-related healthcare into curriculum and training for students to outperform in the domain.

IIHMR, New Delhi, one of the pioneering institutions for healthcare management, is providingthe highest standards of education in the sphere. Students at IIHMR are enriched with knowledge about the latest healthcare management concepts that help develop their core competencies through a nouveau curriculum and industry-vetted academic experience and training. IIHMR strives to produce efficient healthcare management professionals with its industry-centric healthcare management programs, training, and research in a national and global.