Figure 1.3 Major Advancements in Healthcare
Source: Author.
The state of healthcare is ever-evolving, highly dynamic, and thought-provoking. Over the past few decades, the world of healthcare has changed dramatically and presents many opportunities for healthcare organizations to embark on an exciting journey. Many things have improved, new discoveries have been made, and change is constant. Over the course of the authors' careers, there are three major areas shaping the state of healthcare (See Figure 1.3). They are health technology, medical research, and medical procedures. Let's with health technology.
HEALTH TECHNOLOGY
In every direction you turn, technology has played an important role and it has an enormous impact on how healthcare has evolved over the last decades. Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the “application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives.” The simple fact is that, as technology advances, many new innovations are created and developed every day. We believe technology has changed healthcare dramatically and patients, clinicians, researchers, practitioners, and healthcare professionals are reaping the benefits. Think about all of the technology that healthcare uses on a daily basis. For example, computerized tomography (CT) scan machines take x-rays of our bodies from multiple angles and clinicians can examine the x-rays in near real-time to diagnose our symptoms. These images can be stored and shared simultaneously to other doctors as needed. You can even carry x-rays with you if you desire to have them read by another doctor or practice. This is something that we take for granted now but it is such an important piece of technology that is used every day by clinicians.
Other advancements, such as surgical technology, breathing apparatuses, and technologies that deliver and administer medicine have improved and are helping to save people's lives. It's not just the equipment that has changed. Take, for example, the administration of anesthesia. Decades ago, when patients needed to numb pain, they either had no anesthesia or had to be put under completely. Today, clinicians can administer anesthesia locally or to a certain area and patients are more comfortable because they will not feel the pain when having a minor operation.
The biggest change that technology is able to deliver is the way healthcare professionals communicate. Long gone are the days where doctors can only be reached via a beeper. When a doctor was beeped, that clinician would need to find a phone to call that number. Now, however, hospital staff can communicate with one another more effectively and update each other in near real time. We have personally witnessed the use of speech to text when nurses or doctors are documenting their patients. In addition, speech commands can be used to call a specialist or doctor without having to pick up a mobile phone. It is similar to using a cloud-based voice service like Alexa, Siri, or Cortana. Nurses and doctors can simply use speech commands such as “Call Dr. Smith” or “Is Nurse Jo available to come to room 311?”
In addition to calling and connecting clinicians, the advancement of technology also allows medical records to be stored electronically. Compared to a few decades ago, when most medical records were still stored physically in cabinets with thousands of notes spilling out, these electronic records can all be aggregated in a safer and more secure environment for future use. There is less of a chance that information can be misplaced or lost since medical records are now stored electronically. Other ways technology has played a role include hospital booking systems, helping the staff to be better organized and better manage the workload of staffing. A more structured and organized environment leads to better healthcare from hospitals and clinicians know what they have to do with minimal disruptions.
Technology changes how we all live and work but we believe it has improved and benefited the healthcare industry the most. Compared to a few decades ago, we are seeing more tablets, mobile devices, and digital monitoring systems being used to improve lives. Lives are being saved every day because of the progress made in technology for healthcare.
HEALTH RESEARCH
Advances in research have accelerated in the past 10 years. Think of all the discoveries for managing diseases such as diabetes, new drugs and treatments for managing HIV thanks to clinical pharmacology, and procedures for minimizing recovery time for heart condition victims. However, the biggest advancement in health research has been combating cancer and increasing the survival rate. Cancer is one of the most debilitating and deadliest diseases and claims many lives annually. Historically, if you were diagnosed with cancer, you were guaranteed not to survive and may have had only days or weeks to live. Today, more and more people are surviving each and every day. While some people can see cancer going into remission, others live long and fruitful lives with the aid of medications. The key to this advancement is medical research. It has allowed clinicians to detect early signs of cancer and prepare a regimen plan before it can spread or become deadly. If cancer is detected early, the chances of survival are higher, thanks to advanced research in medicine, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
It is not just cancer research: other health areas have progressed by leaps and bounds. Recent research unveiled discoveries in the development of more prescription drugs available in the market to aid with pain and treat infections faster than before. Procedures such as gall balder removal or stent insertion that used to take hours to execute are now done in minutes. Some diseases that were considered untreatable decades ago such as HIV are now more manageable. Thanks to medical research, new developments have progressed that allow clinicians to treat or cure the symptoms faster and safer.
Healthcare professionals and executives continue to push the envelope and invest in health research, which has continued to accelerate in the past decades. Although it is impossible to discover everything or have a breakthrough all at once, there will always be new discoveries and ways to augment healthcare through research. There are technicians in labs across the world pouring over research data to advance medical research and find innovative discoveries made every day and that is a terrific thing for healthcare in the medical research field.
MEDICAL PROCEDURES
Many medical procedures have also advanced to be more effective and efficient. Take, for instance, cataract surgery, which can now be an outpatient procedure where patients can be admitted and released on the same day. Knee surgery patients can go home within a day compared to the past, where patients would have to stay for days in the hospital to recover. Inserting stents for heart patients can be done in hours and patients can also go home within a day to rest and recover in the comfort of their own homes. But no one wants to be in pain during any of these procedures. Anesthesia has been an area undergoing continued improvements. Decades ago, either you had no anesthesia or had to be completely under. Looking back a few decades, patients were worried about the harmful effects of anesthesia. Clinicians used gas that would knock the patient out completely and that would leave them feeling dazed and groggy for hours or even days. Obviously, no patient wants to feel any pain when having surgery. Thankfully, medical procedures such as local anesthetics for simple procedures are more prevalent today and administering anesthetics is also safer. Today, there are options. Anesthesia can be administered locally, meaning only the operating area is numbed. Doctors use injections to numb an area and the