The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that six in 10 adults in the U.S. have a chronic health condition, and four in 10 have two or more. Furthermore, common chronic health conditions are leading causes of death and disability and represent the lion’s share of health care costs in the country. The CDC estimates that 90 percent of the U.S.’ $3.3 trillion in annual healthcare expenditures stem from treatment of chronic health conditions.
There are numerous chronic health conditions that can require long-term care. Some examples of chronic health conditions follow — along with some of the Medtech systems that provide treatment options, help manage conditions, and improve the quality of life for patients.
Gene therapy is bringing renewed hope to patients with diseases like cancer, neurodegenerative conditions, and other ailments. It’s advancing quite nicely since the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act with both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) making significant progress in the science of gene therapy.
So how is gene therapy evolving the world of healthcare? Let’s explore the science.
Electronic medical records (EMR)—also referred to as electronic health records (EHR)—were designed to make healthcare records and systems easier for patients, providers, hospitals and databases. The technology is an obvious advantage for a lot of reasons: paper documents take up valuable office space, can easily be stolen or lost, and also are vulnerable to water damage, fires and even poor penmanship.
However, the transition to a paperless EHR system has proved cumbersome and at times presented a greater security risk than the old-fashioned way. Are EHRs simply a replacement of paper or is there more potential to the underlying data sets and workflows enabled by these tools?
The Sunshine Act, aka Open Payments, requires transparency into the financial relationships between physicians and medical device, supply, biologic, and pharmaceutical companies. Although the compliance burden related to Open Payments can be substantial for your organization, you may discover that you can offset this to some degree. Your sales team can use the data, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes on its Open Payments website, to understand prospects better and, perhaps, improve sales conversion rates.
Applications of 3D printing in healthcare hold incredible potential for the future. Many experts are predicting that 2019 will be a game-changing year as advances in AI and other technology could allow 3D printing to surpass human capability alone. Designs would no longer be restricted to human intelligence and experience.
"Generative design is the ultimate thinking outside the box,” writes Avi Reichental in Forbes, “In this case, the box of the human mind. The paradigm allows for faster morphing and optimizing, which can save money, increase scalability and raise efficiency while consuming less energy and enhancing both form and function.”
Medical public awareness campaigns are designed to distribute important healthcare messages to large populations. With over seven billion people in the world, it is necessary to find ways to share information ethically, without bias and injustice to others. Public healthcare awareness is critical to everyone as disease and infection can inflict anyone, at any time. As such, it is important to spread healthcare messaging through verbal, written, and visual means that can be understood by everyone, promote social health, and are not discriminatory in nature.