Healthcare Technology Takes Center Stage as Lifespans Increase
As people are living longer, the imperative to enhance both the quantity and quality of those added years has put healthcare technology at the forefront of innovation.
Optimizing personalization, prediction, and prevention are key factors in this evolution. Access to innovative care is becoming increasingly central to this phenomenon.
To explore these elements more closely, Medtronic collaborated with Bert Sperling, a best-selling author and livability expert, to address the question: is the first person to live to 150 already among us? Sperling’s research examined U.S. cities to determine which are most likely to be the birthplaces of “supercentenarians”—people who live to 100 or more years.
“We are looking at the future of health tech as personalization, prediction, and prevention,” said Rodolphe Katra, PhD, Global Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at Medtronic.
This future includes algorithms that can identify early signs of heart disease before patients are even aware they’re sick, and systems that analyze and provide real-time data to assist surgeons during operations.
Next-Level Healthcare Technology
These medical and technological advances are improving “healthspan”. Advances in artificial intelligence are helping doctors through colorectal screenings. AI reduces the chance of missed polyps by up to 50%, using a system that scans every frame in milliseconds and alerts doctors to the presence of lesions. This means real advancement in the early detection of colon cancer, the third most common type worldwide.
Next-generation computing is also aiding doctors in surgical planning, and robotic-assisted surgery is helping them perform complex surgeries with precision. For patients, this can translate to fewer complications and a shorter hospital recovery time.
In the future, healthcare will focus on caring for individuals, “not as patients who have a similar disease, but as individuals with unique lifestyle and genetics,” Katra said.
Unlocking a Healthier Future
“We use every tip and trick in the book to stop the aging process,” said Rachele Pojednic, PhD, a human performance researcher, scientist, and professor.
Up until recently, the focus was on aesthetics. Pojednic continues, “The new obsession is, ‘What can we do to act younger?’ That’s where technology such as “digital twins” can help.
Digital twins are virtual copies of real-world objects, be they cities, farm fields, or even spaceships. Health tech is incorporating this technology with human bodies, using AI and predictive modeling to anticipate real-world outcomes—whether mapping a virtual replica of a person’s cardiovascular system to help predict disease progression or providing continuous modeling and predictive insights for managing a complex chronic condition like diabetes.
In the future, health tech will change how we consider longevity—shifting the emphasis from treating conditions to preventing them. This future, reliant on rich data and a patient’s individual needs, may be closer than you think.
