This article was originally written by Teun Schutte in 2022, and since then, the Mobiquity team has updated this article to reflect new discoveries and trends in the industry.
Adopting new technology can be rather contentious. That’s because when technology is created just for technology’s sake (and not for the benefit of the human experience), people often feel confused, frustrated, or disconnected.
But we advocate for a different approach. When designing, building, and marketing digital products and technologies for our clients, our ultimate goal is always to improve the customer experience—and this approach has especially impactful benefits in healthcare.
Take our work with Princess Maxima as an example. This specialized hospital for children’s oncology wanted to develop an interactive digital support tool to guide families during different treatment phases. By designing this intuitive, patient-centered technology alongside Princess Maxima, we were able to leverage technological advancements to reduce stress and improve the transition from hospital to home for countless families.
For us, this experience proved that the best digital health innovations enhance patient care and operational efficiency.
Much of our work centers around helping clients find the best use for digital innovation. Clients already have a specific idea, which we then work to validate.
Clients rely on us to guide them through a particular challenge or friction. In these cases, we work to generate new inspiration and innovative solutions, helping them understand what’s possible and keeping the end user in mind.
Importantly, when starting any conversation with a client about implementing new technology, we always focus on capturing both user and business value. Balance is key.
Fortunately, our digital healthcare features radar outlines app features that benefit both the business priorities of engagement and satisfy a patient's need for support and serve as a key tool in helping us achieve that balance.
Ultimately, working with technology in healthcare is a creative process, connecting the dots of possibilities versus following strict procedures and guidelines. And if you follow those processes correctly, it can always lead to valuable insights and initiatives.
Additionally, it’s important to understand the healthcare systems in place, as they’re usually one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. In that sense, it’s also good to have the experience to pinpoint where the system may be limiting itself.
That’s why we work in teams of people from various backgrounds—not solely healthcare specialists. Having different perspectives and areas of expertise allows us to challenge the normal ways of doing things and bring new ideas to the table.
To that end, new technology in healthcare is already transforming how we help clients operate in this space and improve patient care.
If there’s any healthcare technology revolutionizing how patients receive care, it’s telehealth. Telehealth is when patients receive care from their healthcare provider over digital communication methods (such as video chat or web messenger).
While it’s now fairly standard, telehealth only rose in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. Pre-pandemic data shows that about 5% of people received care this way—post-pandemic, that number has jumped to 25%.
Telehealth is a notably transformative technology because its arrival ushers in a new era of patient accessibility. In particular, it eliminates several notable entry barriers to receiving care, such as driving to an appointment or taking time off work.
Telehealth advancements are also rapidly changing the healthcare landscape to enhance quality of life. Tools like remote patient monitoring, for example, allow patients to track their conditions from the comfort of their own homes (rather than in a hospital or care center), closely monitored by a doctor prepared to intervene.
AI, or artificial intelligence, might be the new kid on the block, but it represents a significant paradigm shift in healthcare technology trends. Both machine learning (ML) and AI are increasingly used in healthcare to streamline treatment decision-making while maximizing time and resource efficiency.
For example, data shows these two tools can outperform standard risk models in predicting breast cancer.
While traditional decision-making and diagnostic techniques are still being used, healthcare providers can overcome constraints on time and data by leveraging AI and ML, and both systems are influencing treatment decision-making today. Looking ahead at AI in healthcare, we can expect these tools to become further integrated into DSS software, which will collate and interpret patient data from many touchpoints and handle complex tasks such as:
What also remains to be seen is how AI and machine learning coincide with regulatory challenges in health tech.
Wearables are another new healthcare technology transforming patient experience—but not without controversy.
Wearables are any device that monitors a patient and collects healthcare data. An example would be your smartwatch tracking your heart rate.
Research shows that the global market size for medical wearable devices is expected to balloon from about $20 billion in 2021 to $83 billion by 2026. This space has grown with the Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to the network of connected technology and the cloud and how it communicates.
While there’s some controversy and concerns surrounding privacy breaches, wearables aren’t an example of technology just for technology’s sake. Wearable health technology tools can remove friction from collecting vital healthcare data. They can also be full-time monitors, benefiting patients with certain health conditions.
Considering these various technological advancements, the future of medicine appears to be increasingly personal. “Personalized medicine” refers to a specific trajectory of medicine where “a patient’s genetic, transcriptomic, proteomic, epigenetic, and lifestyle factors” are used algorithmically to generate specific treatment plans and achieve desirable patient outcomes.
While this might seem like an ideal scenario, there are potential deficits. On the upside, this future of personalized medicine can lead to targeted treatments and allow a patient to take early preventative measures. On the other hand, higher costs might be associated with personalized medicine, limiting its availability for patients.
This style of medicine also relies heavily on patient data, which can raise concerns about data privacy and security. However, as we continue to address these issues, we’ll continue to expand what’s possible for the future of healthcare.
The healthcare sector is a more traditional and conservative industry, so they tend to go for the more established names regarding technology. It’s also an industry where, more than likely, the client is facing budget issues. However, by introducing the same digital technologies we’ve seen improve other industries, such as retail and consumer, healthcare and the patient experience can transform for the better.
Taking the patient experience, for example, many improvements are necessary. Try logging into your hospital account or requesting your data from your GP. It’s much more difficult than it should be!
However, with innovative products like Datakeeper, we’ve proven that we can securely distribute personal information to various stakeholders.
VR (virtual reality) is also particularly interesting for healthcare. In fact, there are already a lot of use cases for treating patients, especially in cases of severe injury, mental health challenges (such as dementia, schizophrenia, and PTSD), and pain management. For example, results show that those using VR for pain management don’t feel their pain as strongly anymore, and this pain decrease can last for months afterward.
VR also helps with education as doctors can show patients how their bodies work or where a tumor is located or explain different treatment options. As humans, we’re very visual creatures, with 80 to 90% of our brain focused on the visual part. So, technology that helps improve visualizations for patients can be extremely beneficial.
For physicians, VR can also bring a lot of advantages and enable better outcomes for surgeries. For instance, physicians can create a 3D model based on a CT scan of a specific patient and actively practice the exact surgery on that individual.
This has multiple benefits:
New technology is key when it comes to enhancing patient experiences and driving growth for companies committed to improving the healthcare industry.
At Mobiquity, we want to continue to create innovative digital products to enable the adoption of new technology in healthcare. That’s why we’ll continue to focus on helping companies develop new algorithms to improve diagnostics, patient journeys, and experiences.
We’ll also concentrate on identifying learnings we can take from the other industries we work in, such as banking and retail, back into healthcare to drive patient-centered technology. For example, how can we use our expertise in digital onboarding, where we excel within fintech, and transfer that knowledge into healthcare?
And also the other way around—how can we help companies from the commercial and banking industries take a step further into consumer well-being? With this approach, we can combine our strengths of customer experience strategy, digital products and services, and digital branding and marketing.
Ultimately, there’s a lot of potential waiting to happen in the healthcare industry moving forward. If you’re ready to take advantage of it, contact us today to learn how we can enhance your digital product or experience with the most effective new technologies.
As an expert in digital healthcare and organizational excellence, Teun Schutte is the Managing Consultant of Digital Strategy Healthcare, Mobiquity. Teun has an established career in healthcare, with a specialism in respiratory health. Beginning his career at GlaxoSmithKline, he spent over 13 years at the organization and worked across 6 different roles. Teun joined the company as a Clinical Research Manager and rose through the ranks to become the Head of Sales and Marketing for Respiratory. Teun has worked on developing digital health solutions, such as the deployment of the MyAsthma application, a COPD coach, and he was integral to the transformation of GSK towards empowerment and digitalization. In 2015 Teun completed Nyenrode Business University in Amsterdam in Healthcare Innovation and Management which further strengthened his expertise in health innovation. Teun joined Mobiquity in 2016 to strengthen the team with his healthcare strategy and digital experience. He has worked with the Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology to redefine the patient pathway from the perspective of the family. He created a digital assistant for pain management and worked in many more disease areas to design and validate digital opportunities, always with delivering value to all users value in mind. In his free time, Teun undertakes voluntary work for the Personalised Healthcare Catalyst Alliance where he has created multi-stakeholder journeys and projects for rheumatoid arthritis and depression, such as “HelpYourFriendsHelp” - a project which activates the social network for people with mental challenges. He is also a volunteer for “Het Longfonds” – a Dutch non-profit which tackles chronic lung diseases. Teun is an authority on using digital technologies to create human-centric healthcare solutions, multi-stakeholder design, respiratory healthcare solutions, realigning the patient pathway from various stakeholder perspectives, and reimagining financial well-being as part of every healthcare strategy.
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