Six Healthcare Trends in 2020

In the ever-changing healthcare industry, hospitals or treatment centers continue to experience an upswing in technology innovation and adoption. Tech innovation in healthcare equates to quick response times and maximum patient satisfaction. At its core, new technology and processes are built to streamline healthcare workflows, ensuring that patient issues are always addressed.

In this post, you will discover six healthcare trends that will make an immediate impact on healthcare in 2020.

1. Rising Use of Artificial Intelligence

Healthcare facilities will further rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline clinical operations. 

It’s reported that medical data will double every 73 days. With AI, healthcare facilities can better process this data and benefit from $100 billion in annual savings. 

At its core, AI helps healthcare providers identify diseases and develop appropriate treatment strategies. Additionally, AI adopts human-specific tasks, streamlining daily healthcare operations and mundane assignments. 

2. The Need for 5G in Healthcare

New healthcare technology requires top network speeds to fulfill their maximum use and value. This is especially true in telemedicine, as it allows physicians to provide exceptional care to patients in remote areas. 

Additionally, 5G allows care teams to quickly share large patient files, consisting of medical records or sensitive information. Accordingly, physicians can expedite diagnosis processes and enhance patient treatment. 

3. Interoperability and Orchestration

Interoperability between healthcare devices removes delays and enhances clinical operations. 

Healthcare devices receive and share patient information in real time. The sharing of information is quick and efficient, allowing healthcare providers to address a patient’s issues promptly. 

Connectivity between devices and internal propagation of patient information will continue to be a growing trend in the new decade. 

4. The End of Antiquated Pagers

Antiquated pagers are unreliable, insecure and don’t support two-way exchanges. Additionally, pagers lack priority alerting, preventing healthcare providers from knowing the importance of a notification. 

The U.K. is already replacing pagers with secure, HIPAA-compliant clinical communication solutions, equipped with advanced web consoles and mobile applications (e.g., OnPage secure alerting app). 

Mobile alternatives cost a fraction of traditional pagers and allow for two-way exchanges, enhancing care team communication and collaboration in the process.

5. Ditching Paper Schedules

Digital schedules eliminate the need to have a person check a paper schedule and send out alerts manually.

In 2020, more healthcare organizations will transition from manual scheduling to digitized, intelligent schedules.

Healthcare organizations can now schedule the right physician on a digital on-call scheduler and automate the alert. These schedules are complemented by escalation policies, which re-route critical alerts to the next physician if the first is unavailable. 

6. Live Call Routing Technology

Healthcare facilities will adopt clinical communication and collaboration (CC&C) systems, complemented by live call routing and dedicated line capabilities. 

Patients dial just one number to directly connect with their physicians on a live call, discussing their urgent and time-sensitive clinical issues.

In the unlikely case that all healthcare providers don’t answer the call, the patient is then asked to leave a callback number and/or voicemail. 

This year will be filled with technology innovation and adoption. Though healthcare organizations can’t fully predict what’s to come in the decade, they can rest assured that these six trends will make an immediate impact in 2020.