United Parcel Company (UPC) is an American multinational shipping and supply chain management company. It is mainly known for its ground shipping services and UPS Store, a retail chain that assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses.
UPS is conducting trials for a program called Flight Forward. The program uses drones to deliver medical samples, such as blood or tissue, between two hospital branches. At the same time, the ground forces could deliver as fast as drones. However, based on the proof-of-concept program, the FAA approved the company to expand it to around 20 hospitals around the U.S.
The CEO David Abney believes that UPS Flight Forward will one day become a significant part of their overall business. The drone technology will help to deliver urine, blood and tissue samples, and medical essentials like drugs and transfusable blood.
However, not just UPS but Wing, a division of Alphabet, received similar, though limited, FAA approval to make deliveries for Walgreens and FedEx. Meanwhile, in Ghana and Rwanda, drones operated by Zipline, a software product engineering services startup, are already delivering medical supplies to villages.
Source – TIME
The Growth of Healthcare Technology
The healthcare software development solutions market is brimming with many technical solutions to enable healthcare providers to extend radical lines of treatment to more effective and affordable patients. Statistically, the health tech software product engineering solutions will touch $280 billion by 2021 at a CAGR of 15.9% between 2016–2021.
The U.S. medical device market has been experiencing a golden period. While the U.S. exports of medical devices had already exceeded $43 billion in 2018, the U.S. medical device market is expected to grow to $208 billion.
Artificial intelligence is an all-pervasive technology that has made its space in the healthcare market. The spread of A.I. in healthcare has resulted from the growing influx of large and complex datasets worldwide. Big data from various sources, such as wearables, sensors, medical devices such as X-rays, ECGs, social media interactions, biometric data, etc., have necessitated A.I./ML-based analytical solutions. As a result, the research suggests that the spending on A.I. is estimated to cross a CAGR of 26.9%, rising from US$ 463.0 million in 2019 to reach US$ 2,452.7 million by 2025.
Like IoT, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a collection of medical devices and apps connected to I.T. systems through online networks. As per a report, the spending on healthcare IoT is expected to reach about $534.3 billion in 2025 at an annual growth rate of 19.9%. The growth in IoT integration is the reason behind the expansion of IoMT.
How to Engineer a Healthtech Solution?
Healthtech innovations are taking center stage globally, with AI/ML, IoT, medical devices, and more becoming an integral part of how medical professionals treat their patients. As a result, there are many healthcare app development services with numerous successful case studies and a more significant number of health tech projects in the pipeline. The question, however, arises, how does one build a robust Healthtech solution?
- Design with End User Perspective
Healthtech platforms have a broad user net. They are utilized by patients, healthcare practitioners, people seeking general well-being, and more. All of them seek to use the knowledge for their benefit. Therefore healthcare app developers must identify the user type and the features and functionality they will require from the application or the device.
Once those needs are identified, an architecture can be designed to integrate all those features. A streamlined integration can lead to harmonious interaction of the user with the tool.
2) Behavior and Lifestyle Change
A healthcare app development company must consider factors related to the behavior and lifestyle of the users. Healthy behaviors are more likely to be accepted if the users find fit per their daily schedule. For instance, some users may want to avoid going to a gym since they already go for a walk or do Yoga regularly. Therefore, health tech should consider alternate healthy behaviors already in place and thus factor in their benefits.
People are seldom very busy; therefore, having another tool can be demanding and taxing.
3) Personalized Communication
Traditionally, patients have been used to one on one communication with their doctors for any supervision or advice. The opposite has also been true. Therefore, to ensure that the patients get the personal touch, the mhealth application development companies should make appropriate communication approaches to attract a wide variety of customers at all stages of behavioral changes.
Users are more likely to be motivated to use the app if it touches upon their pain points. Also, since literacy about health varies from person to person, constant personalized communication becomes a factor in testing and trying recommended well-being methodologies.
4) Custom Application
When people are different, how can one size fit all? To reach out to different sets of people, a custom healthcare app with specific attention to the needs of the niche is required.
Tech-savvy people might seek to use applications with high functionality, while others may seek simple applications specific to their needs. Also, it is to be noted that only some people are self-aware and actively work on their general well-being. Therefore, a software product engineering company must develop applications that meet the needs of different groups of people.
5) Increase Accessibility
HealthTech applications are likely to encounter specific accessibility issues because making products for a vast audience will be difficult. In addition, all HealthTech solutions will likely have a display to communicate. Therefore, it will have to adhere to website accessibility guidelines. Such guidelines ensure no user has any barriers while using the product.
Accessibility here could relate to the website’s readability, size, color, use of infographics, images, and more.
6) Data Management through Cloud Applications
The healthcare industry produces massive amounts of private data related to individual healthcare. Therefore, the demand for cloud computing has enhanced with the increment in the day-to-day collection of data, data storage, and exchange.
Healthcare data such as EMR data, lab results, medical imaging, x-rays, prescriptions, data from smart wearables, videos, and more are now routinely added to the cloud. Therefore cloud applications must be used to ensure that healthcare data are recorded and analyzed well to ensure optimal patient care.
Conclusion
Healthcare app development solutions are enjoying a merry time with a massive surge in digital healthcare technologies such as telehealth which is bound to cross $130.5 billion by 2025. There are many development companies in India if you are seeking a trusted software engineering partner for your new or old health tech solution. For instance, Tntra healthtech solutions help you build innovative healthcare software solutions to help you lead the future of the healthcare industry.
The HealthTech solutions must enable research, data collection, and validation procedures to judge the performance of such applications on safety and performance metrics.
Despite the challenges in digitizing the healthcare sector, it is an unavoidable requirement in the future. The HealthTech solutions can also be used to provide last mile health care in rural parts of developing nations.
The future of healthcare is technology driven.The healthcare app development solutions will lead to designing sustainable and affordable healthcare faster and more secure for all who need it.