⚕️ 2024’s Game Changing mHealth Trends

Happy Friday! The weekend is fast approaching and we’re back with our latest round-up of the HealthTech updates before signing off for this week.

In today’s edition, we are covering:

• Hospitals Embrace Digital Twins: 3 Innovative Applications

• Google’s AI Strategy For Healthcare

• C-Suite Continues to See Health Equity As a Business Strategy

• 2024’s Game Changing Healthcare Mobile Trends

INSIGHT
Hospitals Embrace Digital Twins: 3 Innovative Applications

The era of precision medicine and data driven care is upon us. Technology has enabled creation of what-if scenarios for the hospitals. Data is being used for strategic decision making by creation of digital twins.

Technology leaders are designing and execution of models of care which are revolutionary for patients, families, and caregivers.

Here are three examples of healthcare organizations deploying electronic models, or "digital twins," that allow clinicians to test the treatment on virtual patients before enacting them at the bedside and simulate test scenarios before they are executed in real life.

• Hackensack Meridian Health is pulling patient data from the EHR, wearables and patients' genetic information to create models of individual patient organs. Eventually, the health system aims to create a simulation of the entire patient.

• Thomas Jefferson University is using an artificial intelligence-powered platform called BigBear.ai that allows the hospital to test different operational scenarios and see how the hospital responds to stress and create new operational plan. The hospital tested outcomes based on predicted hospital volume growth and demand shifts.

• Digital twin technology allows clinicians to create a model of the patient with all the same demographics, health conditions and medications, so that the care team would be able to adjust medications or other treatments and see potential outcomes or side effects. UPMC created digital models that allow clinicians to test new treatment plans before enacting it so they can determine the best way forward.

TOP STORY
Google’s AI Strategy For Healthcare

Mobile devices and AI are critical areas of focus for Google’s healthcare plans. Google wants to make your cell phone a “doctor in your pocket” that relies on the company’s artificial intelligence.

Google’s AI scours medical records, research papers, imaging, and clinical guidelines to help doctors diagnose diseases and evaluate treatment options. The tech giant’s already selling these tools to hospitals and foresees many direct-to-consumer applications.

Medical devices that use AI are approved by FDA but the agency has no rules governing advanced software-based tools. Google isn’t waiting around for the legislation to come in place either.

• Mayo Clinic is piloting a new generative AI solution designed by Google Cloud to create relevant content that will personalize care experiences using data from different formats and disparate sources.

• HCA Healthcare is collaborating with Google Cloud on the use of generative AI to support doctors and nurses. By using AI for writing clinical notes, the company is looking to improve clinical workflows and reduce the burden of time-consuming documentation.

• Pharma behemoth, Bayer Pharmaceuticals is leveraging Google’s AI to automate processes in clinical trials to better decipher large data sets, find correlations between disparate data points, and generate insights that can tangibly be used to advance the research and development lifecycle.

• Meditech, an EHR company is embedding Google's generative AI into its EHR in the form of an enhanced search and summarization tool that would present clinicians with a longitudinal view of their patient and a tool that would auto-generate clinical documentation for the hospital course summary.

Google’s Foray into LLMs for Healthcare: Earlier this year, Google launched Med-PaLM 2 a large language model (LLM) designed for the medical domain. It is trained on a massive dataset of text and code, including medical journals, textbooks, and clinical trials and can answer questions about a wide range of medical topics, including diseases, treatments, and procedures. It even consistently performed at an "expert" physician level on the sample of USMLE-style practice questions

The Road Ahead: Regulatory Challenges of the New Gen AI

The main concern from regulators, legal experts and startups is that AI will infiltrate health care before legislators can wrap their heads around it. Sen Mark Warner recently sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, saying he was troubled that hospitals are using the company’s AI without sufficient vetting.

Google responded by saying that the company’s technology isn’t trained on personal health information and that it’s only deployed at a limited capacity. Health systems have control over how it’s used, monitor its behavior and retain control over their patients’ data.

The company sees itself as a partner to government in getting policymakers up to speed on technology. Last month, Google published a policy agenda for AI, calling for pro-innovation laws as well as infrastructure to support the advancement and adoption of AI.

NEWS IN NUMBERS
C-Suite Continues to See Health Equity As a Business Strategy

Health inequities cost Americans an extra $320 billion a year in avoidable costs. A focus on health disparities could reduce overall health costs. A recent research report by Delloite shows health equity continues to remain a major goal for healthcare leaders.

• More than 80% of C-suite executives from healthcare and life sciences organizations see health equity as a top-10 goal for 2024

• Nearly 50% expect to increase health equity investments next year

• 53% health equity leaders predict regulatory pressures to be a driving force in their strategy

• 49% of health equity leaders expect an increased focus on patient engagement and outcomes will propel their initiatives forward

5 factors likely to influence health equity initiatives in 2024

1. Artificial intelligence

2. Community engagement and clinical trials

3. Workforce

4. Ecosystem collaborations

5. Research capabilities

Read the full research report here.

ANALYSIS
2024’s Game Changing mHealth Trends

• There are currently over 350,000 mHealth apps in the market across multiple platforms.

• Global mHealth app market size is projected to exponentially increase, expanding at a CAGR of 11.6% from 2023-30.

The world has already gone mobile with smartphones becoming ubiquitous and easily accessible to everyone. As 2024 drives closer, this article dives deeper into the top trends that would shape the healthcare mobile landscape in 2024.

1. IoMT and apps for smart devices

2. AI powered mHealth apps

3. Apps for foldable devices

4. Augmented reality apps

5. Wearables apps

Read the full list of healthcare mobile trends here.

SNIPPETS
What else is making news

• Cleveland Clinic announced that it is joining the AI Alliance, a group launched by IBM and Meta  and dedicated to artificial intelligence innovation. Besides the Cleveland Clinic, Oracle, Harvard and Dell Technologies are among the participants in the AI Alliance.

• CVS is planning to release a new mobile healthcare app serving as a central hub for prescriptions, health tips, augmented reality store navigation, appointment scheduling at CVS MinuteClinics, and an AI-powered chatbot for consumer queries.

• Connected Caregiver has launched its Prompter Connected Pillbox to make life easier for caregivers. The technology-enabled device uses motion sensors and cellular alerts to remind users, specifically targeted to seniors, to take their medications and alert caregivers if doses are missed.