Interactive Diagnostics
A declining hospital workforce shows that the use of new technologies is essential to ensure that the remaining staff continues to deliver high-quality healthcare.
Medical centers will increasingly use artificial intelligence or deep learning to achieve high performance even with fewer employees. Although already in use, smart support systems will play an even more important role in the future and will work almost autonomously. Such support systems will help medical professionals to uncover infections even at low microorganism concentrations, help to detect the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s, or help to predict heart disease on daily basis. Therefore, reducing the workload of medical professionals, decreasing time to diagnosis, reducing human errors, and most importantly, improving the chances of patients‘ full recovery.
EXAMPLE:
Fraunhofer IOSB is an institute founded in 2010 as a result of the merger of the two previously established institutes Fraunhofer IITB and FGAN-FOM. Fraunhofer IOSB is an innovator in the field of visual systems that support professionals from various fields in decision-making, improve processes and control autonomous systems.
They have developed, for example, OnkoLeit – a support system that helps with the diagnosis and treatment of certain types of cancer.
Expert Statement Alexander Haushofer:
There’s going to be a lot of automation. There is a shortage of technical staff in the laboratory. And I think diagnostically, for certain complex systems, digitization is going to be significant. We just have to be clear, that we don’t digitize everything.
Expert Statement Elisabeth Klager:
There will be probably a lot of substitutions of people with technology and I think technology is a great enabler to more safety or a better environment. But it always depends on the balance. So my personal view is that we always have to keep in mind that we use digital tools whenever it is useful and that we don’t forget that people should be our focus.