Vaccines are starting to roll out in many parts of the world and some believe the beginning of the end of the pandemic is in sight. Optimism is always welcome, but it’s important to acknowledge the challenges aren’t all behind us.
Neither are the solutions to those challenges.
Innovative and exciting medtech solutions emerged over the past year in attempts to address our pandemic-induced problems head on, particularly in the field of medical technology. Which of these technologies offer advantages that go beyond the inconveniences of social distancing, and provide permanent value once relative normality has returned?
Patient Safety
While increased awareness of patient safety has made major strides in the last decade, COVID-19 has thrown the issue into the spotlight. It was 2016 when BMJ published a report citing medical errors as the third leading cause of death in the United States behind heart disease and cancer. The medical community took a brief moment to pause and reflect on how a certain proportion of human loss, through human error, is something we as a society have traditionally accepted. Now, we’re reflecting on patient safety again.
Social distancing, viral prevention, sanitation, and refined approaches to ICU patients all came to the fore during the height of the pandemic. Malnourishment among ICU patients, for instance, was a much more obscure concern before the pandemic. But with a rising number of patients requiring ICU support alongside more studies highlighting the dangers of malnourishment, medtech providers have developed unique methods to circumvent these dangers.
Medical communities have even cultivated awareness campaigns to streamline the issue, with projects like the Patient Safety Movement, which aims to raise public awareness, expand clinical support, and create a wider sense of urgency surrounding the issue. The movement works to create and freely share actionable solutions (Actionable Patient Safety Solutions) to help mitigate potential dangers.
Publications such as the British Medical Journal had already red-flagged it as a serious concern long before the pandemic entered the frame. As such, the issue is unlikely to peter out once we’ve arrived at a point of greater normality.
Telemedicine
Telemedicine is the very epitome of technology-driven healthcare and serves as a literal lifeline for millions of people who do not have access to proper medical facilities.
In April of 2020, 43.5 percent of Medicare primary care visits utilized telehealth methods rather than in-person visits. One of the major benefits of telehealth over in-person alternatives is that it has reduced contact between patients, healthcare workers, and other patients—making it a fitting solution within social distancing guidelines. Wearable devices enable healthcare workers to have real-time information on patient data while they remain at home, such as physicians being updated remotely by people with diabetes regarding insulin dosages.
Telemedicine will likely become part of the medtech furniture beyond the pandemic, since its benefits and usability achieved vindication through the necessity of circumstance.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the industry will be worth more than $66 billion by 2021. It should be stressed that Telemedicine is not a product of 2020. It was being developed much prior and just like patient safety, the pandemic has acted as a wonderful springboard. In essence, telemedicine allows greater access to medical specialists while allowing medicine to treat more patients on a whole. Pandemic or no pandemic, this is a destination medicine will always strive for.
Deep Tech
Digital technology is undeniably altering the way care is both accessed and delivered. 2020 has been a catalyst for this sphere—necessity is the mother of invention, and there has been plenty of necessary demand as of late.
Deeptech is the generic term designated for technologies not focused on end-user services that includes artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, and advanced material science, as well as photonics and electronics, biotech and quantum computing. Deeptech exists as a disruptor with a difference. We think about it as the technology that allows us to transcend the status quo, since current technologies ultimately block progress and deeptech is acting as the un-blocker.
Swati Chaturvedi, CEO of Propel, put it succinctly in an interview with Medtech Innovation:
“They are trying to solve big issues that really affect the world around them.. For example, a new medical device or technique fighting cancer.”
Deep Tech has been taken by the travails of COVID-19, since the effects of the virus represent the most pressing priority for medtech going into the new year. But it would be a mistake to view Deep Tech as some temporary trend, it represents the first step for medtech in one of the most comprehensive transitions of our technological and functional capacities.
It would be easy to explain away medtech’s activity in 2020 as a direct result of Covid, with trends arising to to address the challenges. The truth is a large proportion of the trends we are seeing now have been in the pipelines for some time, some for decades. In some cases, it's taken extraordinary global circumstances for medical trends to propel, but now that the global mindset is becoming digitized, more demanding, and wearier of potential disaster, such trends are unlikely to depart any time soon. People are anesthetized by familiarity, and it requires a year of extreme trepidation for our mindsets to embrace unconventionally effective solutions.
About Author
Doron Besser, Chief Executive Officer: Doron Besser is the CEO of ENvizion Medical and Managing General Partner of Swing Medical. Prior to co-founding ENvizion with Shay Tsuker in 2013, Doron served as President and CEO of Angioslide Ltd., a company specializing in innovative, cost effective angioplasty products. Doron guided the company through its infancy stages, which included complicated animal and human trials, to FDA clearance, CE approval and initial market penetration in Europe and the US. Doron also served as VP of Clinical and Marketing and VP of Business Development at SuperDimension, a leader in minimally-invasive pulmonology devices. Doron holds a Doctor of Medicine from Ludwig Maximillians University in Munich, Germany.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.