How Preventive Healthcare Will Dominate in 2025
HealthcareOnTime
2024-12-13
2024-12-14
3 Min Read
Introduction
Since time immemorial, curative medicine has taken precedence over preventive medicine. But if there's anything that COVID-19 taught us, it's finally time for preventive healthcare to get its rightful due. Who knew that the age-old adage "prevention is better than cure" would ring true in the 21st century?
Slowly but surely, a revolution seems to be underway as preventive healthcare is all set to dominate in 2025. Digital healthcare innovations seem to be all the craze at the moment, with healthcare start-ups receiving massive investments of around $150 million.1
So, prepare yourself for the era of personalised healthcare plans, genetic testing in healthcare, and the role of AI in healthcare becoming front and centre.
But what exactly is preventive healthcare? What are some of the emerging trends in healthcare technology that you must be aware of? What are the supposed benefits of preventive healthcare? Read ahead to find out.
What is Preventive Healthcare?
Preventive healthcare is an emerging field of science that deals with the development of health services whose purpose is to screen for possible risk factors and identify the vulnerable group in an apparently healthy population. As opposed to curative medicine, which treats patients after they present with signs and symptoms of a disease, preventive medicine identifies individuals with the highest probability of developing a certain disease before they can even manifest so that treatment can be initiated as early as possible.
Examples of preventive healthcare include early screening for cataracts to prevent visual impairment, screening in children for deadly metabolic disorders that may have been transmitted to them from their parents, or even a simple blood sugar test to determine if you're pre-diabetic or not.
Technological Advancements in Preventive Healthcare
There are several improvements in preventive healthcare as the number of digital health innovations is skyrocketing at the minute. Some of the important ones among them that merit a mention include:
- Artificial Intelligence: The role of AI in healthcare currently cannot be understated, with a number of clinical disciplines adopting it in their routine practice. Think of the analysis of image-based data like X-ray, CT, and MRI images, the processing of tissue samples to arrive at a diagnosis, or the analysis of a patient's medical records to flag any aberrations.
- Big Data Analytics: This includes the use of machine-learning algorithms to analyse data sets related to patients. We'll further understand the implications of big data and the role of AI in preventive healthcare in the following sections of this article.
- 3D Printing: This allows us to build life-size models of various body parts, artificial prostheses, and other surgical implements to better understand their mechanics and how they can be used to improve the health status of a patient.
The Role of Data in Preventive Care
Big data has transformed the healthcare sector in more ways than one, with inroads being made in various spheres of preventive healthcare, improving its benefits. By analysing large sets of data, healthcare professionals are able to gain valuable insights into disease causation, prediction, and, ultimately, prevention.
Predictive analytical tools are now being used to devise statistical models based on a patient's risk factors, lifestyle choices, and treatment history to flag any potential red flags that could translate to disease causation in the future. Such tools can prove to be really effective in the prevention of chronic diseases like diabetes mellitus and hypertension. 2
Genomics and Preventive Healthcare
From being a mere theoretical idea to practical applications, genetic testing in healthcare has grown by leaps and bounds. In fact, they're now part of a myriad of clinical tests today. But what exactly is genomics?
Genomics refers to the study of genetic material in humans and other organisms, the deoxyribonucleotide molecules (DNA), and the complex interplay between such biomolecules and the environment surrounding them. Even a minute change in these interactions can have drastic consequences on population dynamics.
One of the foremost applications of genetic testing in healthcare is in prospective and retrospective genetic counselling.3
Deadly disorders like haemophilia, beta thalassemia, and sickle cell anaemia, among others, are all passed from parents to their offspring but in differing patterns. Identifying such patterns is where the principles of genomics come in, as they can quantify the risk that an unborn child develops such fatal diseases if the parents were to be carriers of the same or if they've already had a previous child who's been affected.
Preventive genomic testing can also be a formidable arsenal in a diagnostician's arsenal in case of debilitating diseases like cancers. A small percentage of cancers can be familial, meaning that the causative gene can pass down from one generation to another. Detecting such gene variants can go a long way in early diagnosis and treatment of such familial cancers and is one of the classic examples of preventive healthcare. The scope of these practices is slowly expanding to include chronic disease prevention like diabetes and hypertension.
Preventive Healthcare and Public Health Initiatives
Preventive healthcare has begun to shape public health initiatives, with governments starting to launch a new series of health programmes geared towards early diagnosis and treatment of ailments. Some of the government initiatives that are worth taking note of are:
- National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS): This public health initiative aims to improve infrastructure across all levels of healthcare for the effective prevention of chronic diseases. Multiphasic screening, public health awareness campaigns, and referral services are some of the important components of NPCDCS.
- Ayushman Bharat Scheme: Touted to be one of the largest health assurance schemes anywhere in the globe, the Ayushman Bharat Scheme aims to ensure that no one is left behind when it comes to accessing quality healthcare services. A sum of up to 5 lakh rupees is set aside as health cover for a single family. 4
One of the core strategies of this scheme is the digitalisation of health data to build a singular ecosystem for the convenience of all healthcare professionals.
- Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RSBK): This is an important example of the principles of preventive healthcare being applied in public health initiatives wherein children between the ages of 0 and 18 years are screened for 4D's - childhood defects, diseases, developmental delays, and macro/micronutrient deficiencies. Children diagnosed with such conditions receive appropriate interventions, both medical and surgical, free of cost. 5
Economic Benefits of Preventive Healthcare
One of the major economic benefits of preventive healthcare is that it could dramatically cut down your medical expenses. Think of how much money you could potentially be saving in hospitalisations, consultations, and medications if you were picked up as being diabetic by a screening test years before you started presenting with signs and symptoms, or worse, developed complications like visual impairment, kidney damage, or neurological deficits. Other than cutting down on financial strain, such a screening test could have also prevented the emotional, social, and psychological toll a debilitating disease can take on an individual and, by extension, all their family members. This is a classic example of how preventive healthcare can be effectively used in the prevention of chronic diseases.
Challenges in Implementing Preventive Healthcare
There are a number of challenges in implementing preventive healthcare. Some of the most common of them include:
- Behavioural Change Resistance: This is one of the biggest hurdles that will have to be overcome in order to effectively set up preventive healthcare practices. Senior diagnosticians and clinicians are likely to be less than enthusiastic about the possible role of AI and other technological advancements in healthcare. There needs to be a constant influx of a new generation of tech-savvy healthcare professionals who can understand the insight that such digital health innovations can provide.
- Data Privacy: As more and more health records go digital and the role of AI in healthcare starts becoming more prominent, the more imperative it is for healthcare agencies to adopt newer and more stringent data security measures to ensure that sensitive information stays safe. A data breach could undo the progress that has been made over the years, sowing seeds of doubt in the general population about the already proven examples of success in preventive healthcare.
- Financial Considerations: With the role of AI in healthcare becoming more noteworthy, the high costs of integrating such newer practices with existing traditional healthcare practices may be a cause of concern in a developing country like India. There are concerns that such financial barriers may further exacerbate the already prevalent disparities in the availability of quality healthcare across the diverse socio-economic sections of the country.
Future Trends in Preventive Healthcare
With digital health innovations coming to the forefront, here are some upcoming healthcare technology trends to look out for:
- Telemedicine: Following the rise in popularity during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine is expected to grow rapidly in the next couple of years. Remote consultations could become the norm in certain clinical specialities and are beginning to be seen as one of the more effective healthcare cost-reduction strategies.6
- Remote Monitoring: With excellent strides made in newer healthcare technology trends like IoT (Internet of Things), it's now easier for doctors to monitor vitals like blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and blood sugar of a critical patient at the tap of a button while being miles away from an inpatient facility. 7
Keeping this in mind, remote monitoring is expected to become more widely accessible to the general populace and, hence, grow in popularity as one of the foremost healthcare cost-reduction strategies.
- Personalised Medicine: The next frontier in preventive healthcare is personalised healthcare plans, wherein the principles of genomics can be used to construct a thorough genetic profile of a patient. Discharge summaries, follow-up sheets, and prescription papers may go entirely of use since these genetic profiles will provide all the information that a health professional needs to know about a patient. This will now dictate treatment protocols and follow-up schedules, making the treatment highly customisable instead of the age-old one-size-fits-all principles of traditional medicine.
- Wearable Devices: The current fad with wearable devices like smartwatches and exercise trackers is likely to stay, and their user base will grow. In addition to vitals like heart rate and oxygen saturation, some devices can analyse sleep patterns as well. The same trend will be reflected in the use of health and wellness apps, with their paid subscribers expected to hit all-time highs.
How to Embrace Preventive Healthcare in 2025?
Given how much more financially viable preventive medicine is as opposed to traditional curative medicine, it's high time that you start embracing its core tenets. Preventive healthcare is all about modifying the attributable high-risk factors such that you never present with the signs and symptoms of a chronic disease later in life. Examples of the principles of preventive healthcare being applied can be as simple as getting a routine master health checkup at least once a year, exercising daily, eating a well-balanced meal, and maintaining a healthy sleep schedule.
Conclusion
The healthcare sector is currently on the cusp of a cultural revolution, with efforts and attention being directed towards preventive medicine as opposed to curative medicine. With digital health innovations constantly on the rise, the role of AI and Big Data in healthcare is going to become larger as the years pass by. Healthcare technology trends like telemedicine, wearable technology, remote monitoring, and personalised healthcare plans are going nowhere and are definitely here to stay.
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