The post 6 Key Developments in the Healthcare Sector appeared first on Newstrail.com authored by Kelsie Cromwell

The healthcare industry is an industry that’s committed to embracing continuous change and advancement. Few other industries rely on the latest Technology to drive service and Patient improvements as the healthcare sector. There’s an almost constant drive to adopt new practices, treatments, and technology to ensure that patient care can be optimized and patient outcomes are at the best possible levels. 

Over the last century, there have been numerous developments in the field of healthcare that have served to improve the lives of billions of people around the world. Some developments have been subtle, resulting in minor improvements or subtle changes to Medical practice, while others have had far more pronounced impacts in the sector. 

In this article, there’s a discussion of six key developments in the healthcare sector. Some are from decades ago but still enjoy widespread usage in 2023; others are far more recent developments that are currently making a considerable impact on modern healthcare. Together, these six key developments play a significant role in the modern healthcare system and help to improve patient outcomes. 

• Drone usage in time-critical emergencies

Only a decade ago, there were severe challenges involved for pre-hospital care emergency teams when they responded to medical emergencies in extremely rural or remote settings. In a serious medical emergency, time is a key factor that affects the patient outcome. Put simply, if there’s a delay in providing emergency care to a patient who has severe injuries or a medical condition that requires rapid interventions (such as a myocardial infarction), their chances of survival may decrease. In remote settings, it can take far longer for an emergency ambulance or first response vehicle to reach the scene of the emergency compared to urban settings. 

Thankfully, in the last ten years, the use of drone technology in emergency medicine has become more common. Emergency medical drones are typically deployed from an emergency control center when a call is received and the location of the incident is known. They can take grid reference data from the control center and use this to fly directly to the location in the shortest possible period. 

Commonly, medical drones will carry some vital life-saving equipment in their payload, such as a defibrillator which can be used to correct irregular cardiac rhythms and restart a malfunctioning heart. Each year, more emergency medical services are using drone technology to assist in time-critical emergencies. It’s expected that this tech will become commonplace in this sector of healthcare within the next decade.

• MRI scanners

MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging. As the name indicates, magnets are used, together with radio waves and computer technology to create highly detailed images of the soft internal organs and tissues inside the body. This is a non-invasive way to assess and monitor patients and has proved to be exceptionally useful in diagnosing patients who have sustained serious traumatic injuries among many other diagnostic medical uses. 

MRI scanners are a vital piece of technology in most hospitals, but many people may be surprised to learn that this technology has been used for several decades in the healthcare sector. The technology was first patented in 1974, and the first patient MRI scan was undertaken in 1980, where a diagnostic body scan was completed using the technology. In subsequent decades, the technology was improved, allowing it to scan all parts of the brain and fetuses with a high degree of accuracy. 

Today, MRI scans are routine procedures when a comprehensive patient assessment is required. The technology can be used to identify cancer in the body, and it’s now recognized as being one of the most effective methods to do this (when compared to X-rays and CT scans) when searching for evidence of some tumors in the body.

• Precise laser eye surgery

As with MRI technology, laser eye surgery has been a common feature of modern healthcare for several decades but is still one of the most effective treatments when corrective vision surgery is required. In laser eye surgery, an extremely precise laser beam is focused on the eye and reshapes the cornea. This procedure is virtually painless and has a success rate of over 99%, making it one of the most effective procedures in all modern surgery. 

Since the first trial of LASIK eye surgery in 1989, millions of patients have had their eyesight corrected with this technology. In almost all cases, the procedure is successful and means that the patient no longer needs to rely on glasses or contact lenses to enjoy the best possible sight. This procedure is also remarkably quick to undertake. It’s estimated that LASIK eye surgery takes less than ten minutes per eye to perform, and in some circumstances, it can even be completed in less than two minutes. 

To sum up, laser eye surgery has become a common medical treatment in most countries for corrective lens reshaping. It’s extremely effective and quick to perform and has improved the lives of millions of people worldwide. 

• Medical supplier courier services 

As previously mentioned, time plays a critical role in some parts of the emergency healthcare industry. There’s also a need for timeliness when hospitals and other healthcare facilities need to receive specific medical supplies and equipment. For example, hospitals need access to a continuously restocked supply of blood and plasma. This is used to treat patients who have lost significant quantities of blood due to traumatic accidents or other medical circumstances, such as after a difficult childbirth. This blood needs to be kept refrigerated to ensure that it’s fit for patient use and may be required at exceptionally short notice (e.g., after a traffic accident). 

The healthcare industry relies on courier companies, such as statovernight.com, who can deliver these vital supplies in the shortest possible timeframe. Such companies will have access to a fleet of delivery vehicles (including cars, vans, and motorcycles), which ensure that they can transport different volumes of medical products in the most efficient and timely manner. The vehicles will also have refrigeration facilities for specific medical products that need to be kept cool during transit. 

In recent years, some medical supply courier services have played a key role in delivering protective clothing, testing kits, and vaccines in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In short, medical courier companies play a key role in ensuring that supply chains function effectively within the health sector. 

• Telehealth 

Another key impact of the recent Covid-19 pandemic was the need to increase the availability of remote consultations between patients and healthcare professionals. During the height of the pandemic, citizens were required to adhere to lockdowns and only make journeys that were considered essential. This placed a challenge on traditional healthcare practices used to having on-site face-to-face consultations between their staff and patients. Thankfully, these challenges were overcome by using the latest telehealth technologies. 

Telehealth encompasses a range of different pieces of tech. For example, video conferencing software is used to allow effective patient consultations to take place. All that’s required is for each party to have a computer or smart device and a reliable internet connection. Remote consultations have been shown to offer similar patient outcomes while giving medical staff the ability to consult with more patients than could be achieved by physically traveling to multiple locations or surgeries. 

In addition to video conferencing solutions, telehealth also uses remote patient monitoring devices. These can be used to continuously record vital health measurements, such as a patient’s heart rate, oxygen saturation levels, and blood pressure, among other things. This information is taken by using a wearable monitor on the patient’s body. It can then wirelessly connect with the internet so that the observations and recordings can be sent directly to the medical professional over the internet. 

Telehealth technologies have helped medical professionals to deliver high-quality healthcare to their patients in a more timely manner and enable them to monitor and treat a larger patient population.

• VR tech for medical training

Virtual reality (VR) technology is a final key example of another modern piece of technology that is improving healthcare systems. Many people will be aware of VR technology in the gaming and entertainment sector. Here it provides gamers with a truly immersive gaming experience where fully realized virtual worlds can be explored and interacted with. However, VR technology is increasingly being used in the health sector, where it can have a key benefit in terms of its training applications. 

Doctors, surgeons, and other healthcare professionals need to be extremely competent when performing complex treatment and surgery on a patient. Traditionally, this training would be done on cadavers or accurate human models. However, this could be expensive (especially if it required a continuous supply of cadavers) and difficult to schedule for busy medical professionals. 

Thankfully, VR technology is now at a level where sophisticated and highly accurate simulations of the human body can be created. VR tech (with its hand controllers) can be used to practice medical techniques and surgical procedures repeatedly until proficiency is gained. Many medical schools are now choosing VR technology to train their students, as it is a cost-effective and efficient way to build competency in several areas of medicine in a completely risk-free environment.