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AI Technology February 27, 2024

Smart Healthcare: Applying Digital Technology to Medical Care

The concept of Smart Healthcare, combined with the latest generation of information technology, has emerged, bringing significant positive values
Author: VinBrain

Smart Healthcare: Applying Digital Technology to Medical Care

The Emergence of Smart Healthcare

We live in the digital age, the era of Information Technology 4.0. With the continuous advancement of technology and science, traditional medicine is gradually being digitized and informalized, with biotechnology as its core. The concept of Smart Healthcare, combining the latest generation of information technology, has emerged.

Smart healthcare utilizes new-generation information technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Cloud Computing, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These advanced technologies help comprehensively transform the traditional healthcare system, making patient care more practical, convenient, and personalized.

Smart healthcare

Major changes: 

  • Shift in healthcare model: From disease-centered care to patient-centered care
  • Change in information systematization: From clinical data digitalization to healthcare data digitalization by region
  • Change in healthcare management: From centralized management to personalized management
  • Change in prevention and treatment models: From focusing on treatment to focusing on preventive healthcare

These changes focus on meeting patients' needs while improving service quality and healthcare efficiency. Moreover, these changes reflect the medical field's positive direction and promising development.

Definition of Smart Healthcare

Smart Healthcare originates from the "Smart Planet" concept proposed by IBM (Armonk, NY, USA) in 2009. Smart Planet is an infrastructure that uses sensors to gather information, transmit it via the Internet of Things (IoT), and process it using supercomputers and cloud computing. It can coordinate social systems and integrate them to manage human society flexibly and accurately.

Smart Healthcare is a system of healthcare services that utilizes technology and medical devices such as wearables, IoT, and smartphones to access information flexibly, connect people, data, and organizations related to healthcare, and then actively manage and meet the needs of the healthcare ecosystem intelligently. 

Additionally, a modern healthcare system is considered to fully promote healthcare interactions, ensuring that participants receive the services they need; it helps healthcare professionals and organizations make accurate decisions and allocate resources rationally. In summary, it represents a more advanced stage of building information in healthcare.

The Impacts of Smart Healthcare

Information technologies such as IoT, mobile internet, cloud computing, big data, 5G, semiconductor electronics, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and advanced biotechnology form the foundation of smart healthcare.

A developed healthcare technology landscape can positively impact healthcare professionals, patients, hospitals, and research organizations. Moreover, smart healthcare has multidimensional impacts on healthcare activities such as disease prevention and monitoring, diagnosis and treatment, hospital management, health decision-making, and medical research.

From the patient's perspective

They can utilize smart healthcare devices such as wearables to monitor their health anytime, anywhere, seek medical assistance through virtual assistants, and access remote healthcare services.

From the perspective of healthcare professionals

Many intelligent clinical decision support systems are deployed to support and enhance diagnostic processes (e.g., X-rayMRI). Physicians can now manage healthcare information through integrated information platforms, including Laboratory Information Management Systems, Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), Electronic Medical Records (EMR, EHR), etc. Additionally, surgical procedures can achieve better outcomes with support from surgical robots.

From the Hospital Perspective

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology can manage personnel documents and supply chains, utilizing an integrated management platform to collect information and support decision-making. The use of mobile healthcare platforms can enhance the patient experience. Moreover, many healthcare facilities today have equipped themselves with smart camera solutions to monitor all activities of the facility at the same time. This deployment helps detect abnormal conditions of patients that may affect their lives or helps allocate resources properly during overload situations.

From the Perspective of Scientific Research Organizations

Techniques such as machine learning can be used instead of manual drug screening, and big data can identify suitable targets. The year 2023 witnessed the rise of Generative AI. This technology has permeated every field, including healthcare, and promises to impact healthcare trends significantly in the coming years.

Through these technologies, smart healthcare or intelligent healthcare can significantly reduce the costs and risks of medical procedures, improve the efficiency of healthcare resource utilization, promote the development of telemedicine, and move towards providing widely personalized healthcare services.

Sources: 

https://moh.gov.vn/tin-lien-quan/-/asset_publisher/vjYyM7O9aWnX/content/y-te-thong-minh  

https://medlatec.vn/tin-tuc/dich-vu-y-te-thong-minh-mang-giai-phap-cham-soc-suc-khoe-toan-dien-cho-trieu-gia-dinh-viet  

https://nhuthanh.thanhhoa.gov.vn/portal/Pages/2022-12-10/Y-Te-thong-minh-Ung-dung-cong-nghe-so-vao-linh-vuccimldz.aspx  

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/smart-healthcare  

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2414644719300508 

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