With the advent of a super-aging society, rationalization of medical care as a whole and improvement of cost efficiency have become major problems not only in the medical industry but also in society as a whole. “Smart healthcare”, which uses cutting-edge technology to enhance medical services, is attracting attention as a solution to this problem.
In recent years, the word “smart” has come to be heard in many business areas. The healthcare industry is also riding this wave, and an increasing number of companies and medical institutions are working on “smart healthcare” using cutting-edge technology.
What exactly is the “smart healthcare” offered by these companies?
First of all, the examples that are often seen in “smart technology” are IoT (Internet of Things), virtual reality / augmented reality, and big data.
Smart healthcare products and services use these technologies to make medical-related services that can only be performed face-to-face convenient with functions such as remote control, and to automate data collection and management. As a result, labor costs that occur in the medical field are optimized, leading to reductions in communication costs and the like.
In particular, smart healthcare is now being used to realize a paradigm shift from the traditional treatment policy of “treating after getting sick” to preventive medicine of “maintaining health so as not to get sick”.
There are two types of smart healthcare players
There are two main types of smart healthcare players. The first is players such as patients, doctors, medical institution managers, insurers, medical institutions, etc. who actively participate in smart healthcare initiatives and directly or indirectly benefit from their widespread use. be. The role of these players is to encourage smart healthcare from the demand and supply perspectives in the medical industry.
The second is the stakeholders who invest in technology research and development and whose products and services are affected by the application of smart healthcare.
Improving medical and healthcare effectiveness with the latest digital technology
Digital health means improving the effectiveness of medical care and healthcare by leveraging the latest digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, IoT, wearable devices, big data analysis, and virtual reality (VR). doing.’
Medical care is an important field related to the maintenance of human life and function. Until now, in the medical field, we have been focusing on EHR (Electronic Health Record), which is a system related to medical records, such as the use of ICT like electronic medical records. However, daily activity records are important in healthcare, and individuals refer to, share, and utilize health and medical information about themselves throughout their lives through a network with the consent of the individual to prevent recurrence.
Since the PHR (Personal Health Record) of the system is important, the cooperation between EHR and PHR is being promoted. Furthermore, in clinical research, it is expected to provide new value by utilizing digital technology.
