In today’s rapidly evolving world, healthcare and technology are more intertwined than ever. Digital health trends like robotics, artificial intelligence, and telehealth are attracting significant investments and now play a key role in advancing digital healthcare. According to Statista, the digital health market value is expected to reach $274.93 billion by 2028.

From improving patient outcomes to streamlining operations, the impact of these technologies is profound and far-reaching. In response, many hospitals and healthcare facilities are undergoing a digital transformation. 

If you’re ready to embrace this shift in the healthcare industry, here are the top digital health trends that are improving patient outcomes. 

Digital Health Trends Improving Patient Outcomes

The intersection of technology and healthcare has started a new phase in medical care, where these tools don’t just support but significantly boost healthcare services.

According to Marc Meyer, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northeastern’s D'Amore-McKim College of Business and Faculty Director of the program, there are three major trends shaping digital health and healthcare delivery:

• Coordinated care inside a hospital/health facility: Optimizing workflows within a hospital or healthcare facility when a patient is admitted for a major procedure.
• Precision medicine: Gathering and integrating patient data in relation to an illness or disease that allows for more precise diagnosis and treatment.
• Coordinated care at home: Continuing optimal care for patients who leave the hospital to prevent negative outcomes outside of the facility.

With these goals in mind, here are the top digital health trends that can help you improve patient outcomes. 

4 Benefits of Digital Transformation in Healthcare  

1. Electronic Health Records

A significant shift in healthcare management is the transition to digital patient records.

“Coordinated care inside a hospital goes from intake to treatment or care, to patient transfer between units within a hospital for complex procedures,” Meyer says. “And the root of all this is the electronic health record.”

Electronic health records (EHRs) are digital versions of patients' medical charts that provide real-time information about medical histories to patients and their healthcare providers. 

EHRs are shared in a variety of ways across clinical decision-makers so they can:

• Track health data over time
• Monitor patients’ conditions
• Improve healthcare quality

This type of coordination does not just exist in one facility though. EHRs also enable healthcare providers from other facilities to gain access to important patient information.

“A patient can get a CT scan from one facility, and then go to the Mayo Clinic for treatment with doctors who can review those diagnostic images digitally with the patient's authorization,” Meyer continues. “So now there's even care coordination across medical systems, which is a very big deal.”

2. Artificial Intelligence

In the pursuit of precision medicine, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a viable technology that is revolutionizing diagnostics and treatment plans.

For example, AI is starting to make a real impact on reducing healthcare errors by improving the accuracy of diagnoses and treatment plans through its extensive data analysis capabilities. As a result, the AI healthcare technologies market is expected to reach $173.55 billion in value by 2029. 

Human error is not the only issue that AI addresses though. 

“The need for AI isn’t about the quality of our physicians,” Meyer adds. “In most cases, healthcare providers are excellent due to the extensive training and education they receive. The real issue is that there's just not enough of them.”

Labor shortages in healthcare have become a pressing issue that has required innovative solutions. According to one study, 6.5 million healthcare professionals are expected to leave their jobs by 2026, with only 1.9 million new workers to replace them. 

“So healthcare needs to be more efficient, while still maintaining quality,” Meyer concludes. “That’s where AI-assisted clinical decision support systems can help get things done.”

3. Telehealth and Virtual Care

Coordinating care at home is crucial to patient outcomes. It ensures patients receive continuous, personalized care for chronic conditions and post-hospitalization recovery. It is especially important considering the projected shifts in age demographics.

According to the World Health Organization, the population over 60 years will nearly double from 12 percent to 22 percent in 2050.

“With a larger percentage of older people in the population there are going to be more diseases and chronic conditions that will need medical intervention,” Meyer says. “So healthcare is going to have to turn to technology.” 

Telehealth has emerged as a vital digital trend in facilitating this coordination, offering patients real-time access to healthcare professionals and services without leaving their homes. 

“This kind of access to health services is transformative,” Meyer says. “It’s a big time saver for medical staff and physicians, as well as for patients.” 

As a result, patients are opting into telehealth services more and more. The most poignant example of this is the rise in virtual counseling sessions in the United States, with 88 percent of mental health facilities offering teleconsults in 2022.

4. Wearable Technology and Remote Monitoring

While effective coordination of care outside hospitals is often accomplished through telehealth visits, patient monitoring technologies are another effective method. These wearable devices, like an Apple watch or a Fitbit, collect data in a patient's home and share it with healthcare providers via the internet.

This data can help providers: 

• Make more informed home care decisions
• Monitor patient progress remotely
• Respond promptly to changes in patient conditions

“These devices are so important because they use IoT sensors connected with networking and workflow software to issue timely alerts when a patient is getting into trouble and enable timely interventions before they crash,” Meyer says.

For example, patients struggling with heart disease can use a fitness watch to independently monitor cardiovascular health that can also instantly alert healthcare providers to any alarming changes.

5. Data Analytics

Healthcare providers need data to make informed decisions that directly impact patient care. While the digital health trends above are effective data collection methods, the abundance of patient information can be daunting for healthcare management.

As a result, healthcare organizations are hiring more data scientists—like healthcare data analysts and data scientists—who can investigate trend-based theories and find meaningful connections across quantitative and qualitative data. 

“The notion behind precision medicine is that data scientists in healthcare gather a broad array of data to create predictive models for caregivers to make better informed decisions,” Meyer adds. 

Predictive analytics in healthcare offers numerous opportunities to improve patient care by:

• Forecasting health trends
• Enhancing diagnostics
• Personalizing treatment plans

However, many healthcare administrators may worry that relying on historical and real-time data means patient care is solved with an algorithm, rather than human judgment. However, this information aims to provide alerts and advice on appropriate responses—clinical or otherwise—to make providers more efficient and effective.

This is because healthcare facilities can get greater insights from segmenting patients into major groups in terms of age, demographics, and disease and then running the data analysis by these groupings. 

“The path forward in precision medicine is leveraging data on social determinants of health,” Meyer adds. “This ensures patients receive more personalized recommendations in things such as exercise, nutrition, medications, mental health therapy, and more importantly, followup appointments.”

6. Robotic Systems

Robotics is becoming a common technological tool in several industries—and healthcare is no exception.

Healthcare robotics are already showing benefits in:

• Surgical assistance
• Lab automation
• Patient rehabilitation

The most prominent modality of robotics has been in the operating room. In recent years robotic surgery has been most commonly used for thyroid and prostate cancer surgeries—accounting for 38 percent and 27 percent of procedures.

“Technology has been working its way into robotic surgery over the years, but not in the way most people think,” Meyer noted.

Robots are meant to enhance patient outcomes with precise techniques and smaller incisions that reduce complications and infections. However, robots don't operate independently; they are controlled by physicians throughout the procedure.

“It ends up creating more precision in surgery, therefore it’s another form of precision medicine.”

The da Vinci Surgical system is a prominent example, allowing for minimally invasive procedures with its advanced robotic technology​​.

According to Meyer, it’s only a matter of time before this kind of innovation influences patient care outside of the hospital as well. For example, VR headset-enabled systems are going to track and help patients follow rehabilitation protocols post-surgery. In fact, there are reimbursement codes for remote consults and startups with VR PT consultations. 

Digital Health Implementation Challenges

Despite the fact that the digital health market is projected to continually increase in value from 2021 to 2028, digital transformation initiatives are facing several challenges.

Resistance to change is a common obstacle for most managers, but healthcare requires significant support to ensure long-term success.

One of the most important groups that needs to support digital transformation is clinicians. And while resistance to technology from healthcare professionals is often attributed to a generational gap, Meyer believes this is more due to a knowledge gap. 

For example, young medical students consistently train with these technologies and consider them the tools of future clinical practice. In fact, one study showed that 79 percent of second-year medical students are “technology ready” post-graduation.

“People going through medical school and residency today are using many of these new technologies. In fact, my students in medicine and bioengineering love the new technology,” Meyer says. “They understand that if information is based on good data and scientific method, that it's almost like having a physician's assistant sitting right next to you. Or, if they’re in surgical training, many university hospitals now have students do 3D fly throughs of organs, including the heart and the brain, to better plan for contingencies during the surgery.”

Patients are also going to have to get more comfortable with these new technologies. According to a Pew Research report, a majority of U.S. adults are uneasy about AI's role in healthcare, with 60 percent expressing discomfort in this digital health trend—but perhaps this is also a generational issue.

Take the First Step Toward a Career in Digital Transformation

One of the best ways to combat this resistance to digital transformation in healthcare is filling the knowledge gap around these emerging digital health trends. 

If your organization does not have adequate professional development opportunities, one of the best ways to learn about digital transformation in healthcare is by earning a master’s degree in healthcare management, like Northeastern's Online MS in Management: Digital Transformation in Healthcare program.

For details on the Online MS in Management programs, contact an admissions counselor to see how they match your goals.