Healthcare Tech changed drastically over the last two years. Organizations that were early adopters of flexible technology were better equipped to withstand the challenges of the global pandemic and new patient demands.
Adopting these new technologies and skillfully implementing them leads to better patient outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, lower disease rates, smarter system design, and even lower healthcare administration costs. If you’re still hanging onto cumbersome systems of the past, know that these emerging trends are not fads; they are here to stay.
Top 2022 Healthcare Tech Trends
Smart Patient Engagement
Throughout 2020 and 2021, the existing healthcare model was put to the test. As healthcare becomes more patient-centric, practices must operate with a few key patient trends in mind:
- Patients want to be more involved in their healthcare
- Patients need convenient options for communication with providers
- Patients value self-scheduling
- Patients prefer to spend less time in waiting rooms
So, how can practices balance the increasing demands of patients with the efficiency and profitability of their operations? By using technology like smart, bi-directional text messaging, practices can effectively engage with patients, cut-down wait times, eliminate physical paperwork, reduce manual administrative time, enhance access to health records, and improve patient satisfaction simultaneously.
However, simple patient engagement is no longer enough. In 2022, practices need to pursue automated solutions that seamlessly integrate with their existing technology. An integrated solution minimizes the need for multiple platforms or logins, streamlines scheduling, and reduces manual errors, so centers can maximize their patient volumes without compromising on service. (Request a demo here to see this in action.)
On-Demand SaaS
The SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model is a trend that practice leadership can’t overlook in 2022. Hardware, hardwires, servers, and on-site tech equipment are costly to maintain and difficult to update. Cutting-edge, cloud-computing technologies allow healthcare organizations to keep up with market demands and access the platforms they need at the moment they need them without the responsibility (or headache!) of the management. With SaaS healthcare IT solutions, your practice eliminates costly capital expenditures, continuous maintenance, and frustrating downtimes from your to-do list. Sounds like a trend you can easily get on board with, right?
Let this be the year you either say goodbye to your legacy systems or bring them into 2022 by seamlessly integrating new on-demand applications as single-payment subscriptions. Maximize your IT budgets while optimizing your IT operations.
Scalable Cloud-Based Storage
Healthcare organizations complete an almost innumerable number of individual tasks and transactions each day. Unfortunately, expanding traditional on-site data storage for healthcare organizations is expensive, limited, and inconvenient.
In a healthcare market where the number of studies and patients is only increasing, demand to modernize and optimize healthcare IT solutions to accommodate this growth is at an all-time high. That’s where cloud-based solutions supported by infinite compute power and storage come in.
Healthcare organizations and advanced imaging centers must embrace this 2022 healthcare trend to stay competitive while scaling. Without cloud-based platforms and storage, your practice risks running out of space to store critical information like health records, patient images, and historical practice data.
Integrated Business and Artificial Intelligence
With their ability to aggregate and analyze enormous amounts of data, business intelligence tools offer practices powerful analytical efficiency. If your organization is not using its data to make business decisions, you are missing out on many benefits, including:
- Tracking practice opportunities to elevate operations
- Streamlining reimbursements to minimize payment collection time
- Identifying diagnosis patterns to optimize scheduling
- Tracking appointment trends to balance equipment rotation and maintenance
And while business intelligence can greatly assist practices with data collection and analysis, artificial intelligence (another key healthcare technology trend for 2022) uses logic to enable the technology to make decisions without any manual input. Chatbots or smart robo calls, for example, can be used to conveniently answer patient questions or complete complex scheduling requests without additional human intervention. Automating this process is crucial, so administrative time can be redirected into other key focus areas like referral engagement, care coordination, and patient satisfaction.
Telehealth
According to McKinsey & Company, telemedicine usage has stabilized at an impressive 38x pre-pandemic levels, a fact that can’t be ignored as the world hopefully also stabilizes in 2022. The significance of telehealth is here to stay as more patients choose to see their practitioners for various appointments or follow-ups via video from the convenience of their phones. This trend will be especially important for monitoring and managing chronic conditions or when urgent follow-ups are needed in difficult scheduling situations.
Leverage These Healthcare Tech Trends and Modernize Your Healthcare IT Services with AbbaDox
To succeed in this new technological landscape, healthcare organizations and diagnostic radiology practice managers must understand how to implement these technology trends to:
- Optimize their processes
- Facilitate smarter practice management
- Balance finite resources
- Improve decision-making
- Enhance customer satisfaction
- Attain (and surpass) financial goals
With AbbaDox, advanced imaging centers and hospital systems benefit from a suite of advanced, cloud-based SaaS applications that are continuously updated as new trends emerge. All of these 2022 healthcare technology trends are woven into the architecture of AbbaDox’s healthcare IT solutions, so your practice will always stay ahead in an advanced and increasingly competitive market.
Are you ready to modernize your practice operations and leverage these top healthcare technology trends in 2022? Click below for a personalized demo of our suite of solutions.