What Will Be Trending in Digital Health in 2025?

Digital health is not a new concept in the healthcare space. We all know about or have used equipment’s such as Fitbits and smartwatches to assist us in moving closer to our wellness goals by tracking our daily physical activity and informing us about where we are presently and where we need to be in the future to achieve better health.

As we step into the new year, many of us probably have resolutions about renewing our commitment to that necessary goal of achieving better health and some of us might not be quite sure about where to start. The purpose of this blog is to provide a brief introduction to some technologies that are going to be trending in the digital health space in 2025 and how they may be able to help you.

AI for data analytics, aggregation and automation

Artificial intelligence has irreversibly changed our reality. Less than a decade ago, the concept of AI was strictly held within the realm of sci-fi movies, tv shows and books. Now, it is an intrinsic part of our daily lives. That is not going to change.

Fortunately, the healthcare ecosystem has been able to adopt and adapt this technology in a productive manner to improve the care delivery process. Here are some keyways AI has improved healthcare:

• It reduces the administrative workload of the provider and their staff, which would allow them to expend their time and resources to patient care
• It reduces the risk of human error during diagnosis and treatment, which could severely complicate health outcomes
• It is able to intake a large volume of patient data, analyze it, and segment it into useful, easily understandable information for both patient and provider
• It is able to compare and contrast health data to predict and prevent diseases at the onset

Predictions on how AI in healthcare might evolve in 2025:

• AI automated patient-oriented virtual assistants who would be able to function similarly to a tool like ChatGPT. These would become accessible on your handheld devices as well, even WITHOUT access to the internet.
• AI “scribes”, who would be able to transcribe patient-provider conversations, assess it for relevant information and create a patient health record profile.
• AI technology will become a normal and expected part of any medical team and will be relied upon when making decisions on treatment.

Telehealth Expansion

Due to the circumstances that we found ourselves in during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re all well aware of what telehealth is and how it works. What we realized during this period of time is that while there are certain cases in which visiting a provider’s office in-person is necessary, in a large majority of instances, we can receive the care we need from the comfort of our home, through telehealth appointments.

In the few years since this technology burst onto the scene, it has only continued to gain in popularity and now insurance providers and healthcare providers are taking steps to integrate this technology as a critical step in the care giving process, so that care is more easily accessible to the patients.

Robotics in Surgery

Yet again, a technology that was once only known in the realm of science fiction, such as Star Wars, has now become a reality. Take for instance the da Vinci surgical robot.

According to an article by Case Western Reserve University about robotics in healthcare, “The da Vinci Surgical System gives surgeons more precise control for a range of procedures. Using magnified 3D high-definition vision and controls that strap to a surgeon’s wrists and hands, the da Vinci System makes tiny, exact incisions that human hands might not otherwise be able to make. This offers enhanced control to surgeons and, since the surgery is less invasive than traditional surgery, a faster healing time for patients.”

The possibilities of what is achievable through the integration of these robotic technologies and AI, in conjunction with skilled healthcare professionals, is endless.

Remote Patient Monitoring/Hospital at Home

When you picture remote patient monitoring, the first image that might come to mind is probably one of a patient laying in bed, hooked up to a horde of medical devices, constantly beeping and blinking. That still exists, but we have gone so far beyond that in today’s world.

Take a look at your Apple Watch’s health app right now. It has information about your blood pressure, your blood oxygen levels, your medication history (including what time you take them), your daily heart rate variability, your daily caloric expenditure, the amount of exercise you’ve done, and so much more. All of this information, if you choose to do so, can be shared with your primary care physician; who can use this data to provide you with better and more patient-centered care. And the Apple Watch is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wearable technology assisting in remote patient monitoring.

To compound onto that technology, tasks that were previously considered not viable without a visit to the doctor’s, such as blood testing, is now possible by self-administration through the use of technology.

Smart Implants

Obviously, the afore-mentioned Apple Watch is already becoming part of our daily lives, but it is only the start. Last year, we learned that Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain-chip had been implanted onto their first human trial subject. Subsequently, we’ve learned that the patient, who is a quadriplegic from the shoulders down, gained the ability to use a computer and control the mouse, through their thoughts.

Since then, a second person has been successfully implanted, and Canada has approved Neuralink for human trials. The possibilities here are quite frankly exciting, and hard to overstate the importance of.

Sustainability and Interoperability

This trend is not so much a technological innovation as much as it is a mindset alteration. For the past few decades, possibly the entirety of most of our lives, the healthcare model has been one centered around a fee-for-service model. If you are sick, you visit a provider, they treat you and bill you.

That mindset is rapidly going away and is being replaced by a value-based care model of treatment. This is a model of treatment that isn’t incentivized by financial rewards but instead centers around enriching the health and holistic well-being of the patient.

Sustainability and interoperability are crucial pillars supporting this shift, ensuring that healthcare systems can efficiently exchange data while remaining adaptable to long-term patient needs and environmental considerations. This idea is quickly gaining ground in the healthcare ecosystem, with it expected to become the norm for 90% of the industry by 2030.

2025 and Beyond

The future of healthcare and the well-being of our human population is looking brighter than it has in a very long time. While there are challenges still ahead, the innovations and the adaptations the healthcare ecosystem and its participants have wholeheartedly embraced has placed us on a path where we might be able to ensure that the future that we live in will be one where ALL OF US are able to get access to healthcare that is affordable and effective.