The coronavirus pandemic significantly affected the medical industry and led to multiple disruptions in different sectors of healthcare. COVID-19 revealed critical gaps and made the healthcare industry incredibly vulnerable, which promoted any healthcare development company to overcome the existing issues by applying emerging technologies. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more valuable in terms of remote health monitoring.
Therefore, the current pandemic requires efficient medical and healthcare solutions that are beyond such spheres as virology, immunology, or epidemiology. Modern health tech startups and software development agencies like Exoft are trying to fulfill the particular needs since the world economy is already recovering from the global crisis.
These companies intend to redefine today’s healthcare industry and introduce several promising tech solutions for catering to the increasing requirements. Besides, health tech startups will become strong competitors to well-known healthcare giants thanks to their performance, productivity, and effectiveness.
Below we will indicate the most promising health tech startups in critical four domains and analyze the ways they identify and overcome issues in the healthcare industry.
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The tremendous growth of telehealth startups
Applying telehealth software increased during the coronavirus pandemic since it allowed eliminating the physical contact between clinicians and patients. For instance, implementing remote monitoring and treatment software products is expected to quadruple the relevant sales revenue in the healthcare industry by 2031. In this case, a telehealth startup called Babylon Health will continue to take the medical market by storm.
The particular startup has developed an efficient AI software solution that provides remedies for numerous ailments, including influenza, bronchitis, or even skin allergies. Also, this product can offer clients an online appointment with necessary doctors and ensures around-the-clock digital consultation. To stay successful in such a competitive environment, Babylon Health has established partnerships with top healthcare providers. That allows providing millions of individuals with accessible service in North America, the United Kingdom, and the Asia Pacific region.
The increased use of big data analytics
Collecting and retrieving healthcare service information may be an incredibly lengthy and tedious process since large volumes of health data are passively collected by different healthcare institutions. However, new health tech startups can combine image recognition technologies with machine learning (ML) algorithms for detecting diseases and recognizing related abnormalities more quickly.
Besides, the specifically trained algorithm enables doctors to diagnose multiple diseases thanks to patient images and records, like photos, test results, and various medical information. Therefore, adopting big data analytics in the healthcare industry provides significant opportunities for health tech startups and allows expanding their auditory in the market.
A great example of using big data is Freenome, a successful biotechnology health startup. It merges the areas of biology and medicine efficiently by benefiting from the speed of ML algorithms. Freenome allows detecting the early onset of cancer by conducting a simple blood test on their own “Multiomics” platform. After all, this US-based startup employs a team of ML experts, software engineers, biologists, and clinicians for assisting doctors in the development of next-generation precision therapies.
Making lives easier with IoMT
The improved versatility of smartphones and various mobile apps enables millions of patients to benefit from remote monitoring and treating chronic illnesses. The appropriate integration of the internet of things (IoT) with emerging telehealth technologies resulted in the appearance of IoMT (internet of medical things).
For example, new wearable devices may involve built-in ECG sensors, along with EKG monitoring sensors. Also, such sensors are in-sync with IoMT, which helps patients monitor their skin temperature, the level of glucose, or blood pressure indicators. Thus, such rapid tech advancements will increase the market growth of wearable devices. Thanks to IoMT, clinicians can monitor patients’ vital signs and provide the necessary medicines or drugs automatically. That allows managing patients’ vitals appropriately and preventing overdoses. You can also get Sensoronics Masimo Sensors.
Here, Medicsen can be considered a perfect example of adopting IoMT technologies. This Spanish-based health tech startup is creating smart patches required for non-invasive drug delivery systems. Their target audience consists of diabetic patients. Users can activate and operate a relevant patch manually, or that can be done through ML algorithms. Medicsen’s device provides direct access to personal health information and predicts future glucose levels. That is crucial to deliver the necessary amount of insulin.
VR-based medical treatment
Treating chronic pain continually may cause harmful side effects, including addiction to pain medicines such as morphine or codeine. Nowadays, health tech startups develop medical treatments based on VR (virtual reality) for distracting patients from worrying about pain during therapy. Also, prominent healthcare institutes train their personnel by establishing specific VR-based training modules. Thus, integrating VR software into medical and wellness apps enables doctors and students to practice in a safe simulated environment.
Considering the United Nations’ strategies to reduce the mortality rate caused by drug overdose in the next decades, virtual reality is among the top-notch technologies for eliminating patients’ reliance on pain medication. Modern startups are partnering with leading healthcare companies to make VR-based treatment more affordable.
Among successful health tech startups that develop VR software solutions for medical and wellness apps is XRHealth. They design products for providing optimal rehabilitation care, managing pain efficiently, and performing patient information analysis. Although this startup is based in Israel, its products are incredibly popular in Europe and Asia since they tackle pain thanks to complex and interactive images in virtual reality. Such gamified experience offers targeted behavioral techniques for addressing pain appropriately.
Conclusion
Of course, modern health tech startups are struggling with firm resistance from giant medical and healthcare companies. But they will demonstrate significant growth due to the increasing customer awareness related to health and wellness. In addition to that, many digital technologies have already become more accessible. Therefore, strategic partnerships with different healthcare institutes or service providers are crucial for health tech startups as it allows strengthening their market position.
Ultimately, investors prefer investing in the relevant new health tech startups for gaining impressive financial returns thanks to the increase in demand for remote healthcare solutions among customers. With emerging technologies like digital health monitoring, the medical industry will open a new era where these startup companies will dominate.
