Another year, another year of innovation in healthcare. As the pandemic continued to impact the healthcare field via staffing and resource challenges, there were areas of growth in health informatics to help to find ways to improve these ongoing issues. In this blog post, I am going to go over some areas I am excited to continue to watch develop in 2023 and in the future!
Genomics and the Electronic Health Record
As we continue to learn more about genomic data, there is a growing push to integrate an individual’s genetic blueprint which could help to guide their treatment plan. For instance, the clinician might be able to use this information to predict how a patient might react to a certain prescribed drug. Interoperability challenges have been reported as one of the barriers to fully integrating genomic data into the Electronic Health Record system so it is easily accessible by clinicians. However, MEDITECH recently announced that they would be integrating patient genetic data into the clinical workflow of their EHR. I am personally excited to see how the field of precision medicine will continue to evolve as genetic testing becomes more mainstream and accessible to the general population.
Natural Language Processing
Recently Google Health announced that they would be integrating Care Studio into Meditech to leverage the use of natural language processing with its advanced search functionality and the ability to group and sort relevant conditions for clinicians to easily access. This is what I hope to see more of, big tech companies which are making moves in the healthcare space, such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft partnering with Electronic Health Record vendors which are already integrated into hospital systems and using their technology in a collaborative way.
Health Equity
Health equity is an area that seems to be getting more and more coverage, especially in tracking social determinants of health data, whether in research studies or within the EHR. In addition, there has been more work done to ensure that artificial intelligence algorithms, that are used in healthcare, are equitable and are tested on a diverse group of people to help reduce biased results which could have negative effects for marginalized groups.
For instance, there has been a push to review the controversial ‘race-based correction factor’ from an algorithm used to diagnose people and determine if medication should be administered for kidney disease. I had an opportunity to attend an event by OneHealthTech from the Data Science for Health Equity community, it was a great event where people could collaborate from all over the world to discuss how can we develop technological solutions in healthcare without leaving people behind, especially those who are from marginalized communities. In addition, Transform Health has developed a framework for health data governance principles which is a comprehensive overview of the core elements to think of when working with health data (e.g., data security, building community relationships etc…)
These are a few of the areas that I am excited to grow in 2023, comment down below, what health tech trends are you excited to see in the health informatics field?
Categories: Health Analytic Informatics
0 Comments