Innovations in the health sector are made possible by technologies that range from blockchain and artificial intelligence to big data analytics and advanced sensors
The healthtech sector is currently one of the most dynamic in technology – aging populations, increasing patient demands and the rise of lifestyle diseases, coupled with pressure on the costs for delivering care, are forcing healthcare providers to innovate in order to improve the quality of their services and lower their prices.
Those innovations are made possible by technologies that range from blockchain and artificial intelligence to big data analytics and advanced sensors. IoT connectivity also plays a key role. And data is central, but not on its own. Up until three-to-five years ago, all that healthcare data was just sitting there. But it’s now being analysed and interpreted. This is the most radical change happening in healthcare.
Healthcare organisations have seen an explosive rate of growth in health data. Healthcare professionals are challenged to remain up to date with information and consider all relevant data for each patient diagnosis and treatment decision. Fortunately, digitalisation increases not only the ability to collect, store and manage data, but also to connect individual data points for analysis.
Serbia has strong potential for healthcare start-ups based on its strong it sector, with clusters of start-ups around gaming and block chain technology, and the fact that the government has prioritised the digitalisation of the healthcare sector
By managing the wealth of data on individuals and their illnesses, new tools can help speed up the time to treatment and improve the quality of patient care. The availability, standardisation and integration of data present several opportunities, but success requires proper and secure data management infrastructure. Clinical decision support software leverages analytics to transform large amounts of data into insights that can improve and personalise patient care, simplifying clinician navigation of the increasing complexity of medical information. It allows clinicians to shift their focus to that which matters most: the patient.
We today have an unprecedented opportunity to personalise healthcare by capturing and analysing a inundation of data. The convergence of medicine and technology, combined with exponentially growing industry knowledge, clinical trial findings and real-world evidence, enable a deeper understanding of how to treat an individual.
Unlocking the insights contained in patient health, genomic and phenotypic data is of high value to all key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem: patients, providers, payers, the commercial sector and the life sciences sector. Serbia has strong potential for healthcare start-ups based on its strong IT sector, with clusters of start-ups around gaming and block chain technology, and the fact that the government has prioritised the digitalisation of the healthcare sector. The officially announced five-year strategic plan and three-year action plan for the digitalisation of Serbian healthcare provides detailed definitions of the process of structuring, quality control, longitudinal integration, data anonymisation and sharing. Almost all healthcare institutions have information systems, while more than 85% of them share the same platform.
