The Accenture Healthcare Technology Vision 2015 identifies 5 top trends that will dramatically influence the healthcare industry and the delivery of care in the future. We’re entering an era of personalized healthcare where patients expect to have a meaningful and convenient individual health experience, both virtually and in-person.
The surge in clinical data, accompanied by advances in processing power, analytics and cognitive technology, is fueling smarter software that makes it easier to turn big data into better decisions and ultimately, better healthcare for patients. However, this does not come without challenges. Forty-one (41) percent of health executives responding to our survey said their data volume has grown by more than 50% in the past year alone!
Intelligent machines can support this data surge from disparate sources, such as diagnostic tests, connected devices, genomics and medical records. The vast majority of health executives we surveyed (83%) agree that provider organizations will soon need to manage intelligent machines as well as employees, while roughly four-in-five (84%) strongly agree that their industry will need to focus as much on training machines as on training people in the next three years.
Take for example so-called wearables or connected devices that collect patient-generated data. Health executives already see these as beneficial, with nearly three-fourths (73% of respondents) reporting a positive ROI from their investment in technologies that track an individual’s fitness and vital signs. Most doctors (85%) also believe that wearables improve a patient’s engagement with their own health. Patients agree: according to our survey, 76% of patients believe that wearables have the potential to help them better manage and improve their health. Health monitoring is the top reason for more than half (54%) of patients to use smartphone apps.
The advent of real-time patient data, smarter technologies and individualized treatment plans will help healthcare providers break from their traditional business models and provide more outcome-focused services for individuals. As the digital revolution gains momentum, doctors and clinicians will use machines to augment human labor, personalize care and manage more complex tasks. In turn, this will create a data goldmine that could spark medical breakthroughs.
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