Healthcare Industry Challenges 2020: Why it Needs Technology Desperately

The healthcare industry is one of the most important sectors out there. Not only does it take care of the health of the population but it also provides them with services that are necessary for survival. But, just like any other sector, the healthcare industry has its needs and requirements. These are further increased with the burden of the progressing world and advancing technologies.

Although the human race has advanced to a credible degree and achieved things at a far more rapid scale than it was ever thought of, the healthcare sector still lags behind.

We have a never-ending desire to introducing new technologies to the world so that our existing problems can be solved and new opportunities come up. While researchers come up with newer researchers and theories in the world, there is strong resistance in various industries that impacts the adoption of these technologies.

While some industries find it hard to keep up with new technologies, others just feel they are comfortable with carrying out tasks using their traditional methods. This approach not just hampers growth but also poses a lot of challenges in innovation and taking an industry forward. And when it comes to industries like healthcare, where there are already a ton of problems and issues, technology seems to be the only way out.

Even though people feel comfortable working in a certain way, technological impacts can make a huge difference to it. They might not want to adopt it first because of the threat of things being out of place, but once they do, there is no going back. Technology can have a deep and fierce impact on the existing problems of industry, only to transform it into something far more efficient and fastidious.

The Underlying Challenges of the Healthcare industry

No matter how many new healthcare centers open or hospitals are established, there are far more concrete challenges prevailing in the healthcare industry than they appear. And even though we are progressing in key areas of society, the pace of growth in the healthcare center is slow.

You might also have heard news highlighting how healthcare was on the verge of the breakthrough. There was a lot of anticipation around how the industry was progressing at much faster speeds due to the penetration of technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

But the fact of the matter is that the pace of proliferation of these technologies is much slower as compared to other industries. The healthcare sector is still resisting these because many medical experts and organizations believe that penetrating technology might remove the human touch from it. After all, robots are performing surgeries, algorithms are successfully outperforming doctors, most of the organization data is now migrating to the cloud and many changes are underway.

But, what people fail to understand is that technologies like the cloud, machine learning and artificial intelligence are all rehumanizing the healthcare industry for the good. They’re not designed to take away the jobs of radiologists or medical experts, but to assist them to identify a disease at an earlier condition, so that adequate action can be taken.

The past is a precise indicator of the future of the healthcare industry. If we look at the past decade the healthcare industry as a whole underperformed and left for a lot of scopes that could have been otherwise filled with technology. So, while these already exist, how can we expect this year or any year in the future to be any different?

Rising costs

Costs play a huge role in the healthcare industry. They are one of the most crucial metrics for determining healthcare affordability and access. After all, it is a relevant factor when it comes to determining the economic growth in a country, or the world as a whole. In spite of several policies and changes taken by the governments, a lot of people remain uninsured. Moreover, the rate at which the population is rising is surpassing all other developmental factors.

One of the main reasons behind the rising costs is that countries continue to pay higher costs for diagnosing tests such as imaging tests etc. along with medications, basic health visits, common operations, etc. Statistics suggest that in the US alone, as many as 1 to 2 million citizens have declared bankruptcy due to medical expenses.

Lack of Quality

Even though we hear algorithms breaking through the stereotypes and bringing revolutionary care centric approach to the healthcare industry, the global healthcare industry still lacks the quality. Even though countries like the United States are spending a lot of money as compared to the wealthiest of nations around the world, they still lack in providing quality care.

Electronic health records have existed for nearly two decades now, but you can still find doctors complaining about how the system is cumbersome. There is a lot of interoperability issue that connects one EHR to the other. On the other hand, some countries don’t even have the concepts of digitized health records yet. As a result, there is a huge lack of quality care in spite of the money being spent.

Physicians Burnout and Patients Remain Unsatisfied

Physicians continue to burnout owing to the needs of the rising population. There is a surge of patients in medical facilities, with close to none management of staff and other resources. Even though AI-based algorithms that can efficiently take care of hospitals’ needs exist, they have not been implemented.

Studies suggest that doctor burnout rates range from 44 to 54 percent in most studies and is much greater than the average working population. Moreover, since patients have less say in their treatment, a majority of them don’t feel satisfied with the treatment plans designed for them.

Conclusion

The medical industry is one of those industries that require the maximum utilization of Healthcare Software Development in the time to come. The worst part is that many solutions that already exist are not being efficiently utilized around the world. But, if things have to be changed in the future, technology will be the only answer catering to the needs of emerging problems.