Technology and Healthcare - Devices that Bridge the Gap

The wrist bands monitoring vitals started out as part of the fitness craze, but the next generation of wearables are becoming important tools for healthcare. They enable providers to stay connected with a patient's treatment and progress in real time, representing an excellent early warning system for those with heart conditions or progressive diseases like Parkinson's. Here are just a few of the high-tech devices bridging the gap between technology and medicine to provide new tools that were fiction not so long ago.

Everyone was stunned to discover the capabilities of a device that's becoming more affordable. Medical research is still exploring the many ways these versatile machines can benefit patient care. 3-D printers can be used to create accurate models of damaged organs to allow surgeons to plan difficult procedures. Custom prosthetics can be designed and created for much less cost and with less delay. 3-D printers capable of printing not just plastics, but metals, can give the same benefit to orthodontia, joint, and bone implants.

Connectivity, custom apps, and video telemedicine are pointing the way to a more personalized approach to treatments. Those vital signs can be transmitted and stored in hospital data banks. A new type of chip from Proteus Digital Health can be added to pills to confirm that a patient is taking medication on schedule and in the right doses. Big data, AI software, and computer algorithms can actually help promote personalized medicine by comparing patient-specific data to thousands of known cases.

Modern technologies such as infrared, ultrasound, and light imaging are improving electronic imaging to give physicians a non-invasive look inside the body. This can be an invaluable tool in tracking forms of cancer and degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer's. PET (positron emission tomography) is a molecular imaging technique using radiolabeled molecules to map and track biological processes, of great value to pharmacological and genetic research. Professionals, like those at SAH Global utilize the latest in nuclear medicine to diagnose the presence of disease in the body. Having access to such advanced forms of technology helps save lives.

New healthcare devices are designed to make patient care easier, faster, and more accurate. Automated, detailed data collection leads to better diagnosis and more effective treatment. In an age when insurance premiums are high and waiting times can be long, these are huge benefits not just to the industry but to populations around the world.