Tag: future

Meet your healthcare providers post Covid-19: Greater agility, better infection containment, fast diagnostics & telemedicine

Meet your healthcare providers post Covid-19: Greater agility, better infection containment, fast diagnostics & telemedicine

Jul 2, 2020 | ,

When the coronavirus surfaced in China in December 2019, it set off a domino effect worldwide – with the number of active cases snowballing rapidly.  By February 2020, the daily increase in people falling ill with Covid-19 was in the thousands and -though international borders closed down and households went into lockdown – active cases skyrocketed in June to approximately 130,000 new cases a day, according to Worldometer.  Major global cities from New York, to London, and Mumbai found their healthcare systems direly overwhelmed by the tsunami of symptomatic citizens. Many countries tried to “flatten the curve” of the contagious infection to manage the unprecedented overload on public health systems, and to distribute the demand for medical care, intensive care unit beds, and ventilators over a longer period.  This large-scale global pandemic made healthcare – an industry traditionally slow to adopt innovation because of cumbersome regulatory and governmental pathways, low IT budgets, legacy systems, lack of trained personnel, and more – ripe for disruption. Technology entrepreneurs, unfettered by politics, bureaucracy and public financial constraint, entered the mainstream for the...

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The Future Came Early

The Future Came Early

Jun 30, 2020 | ,

Traditionally, corporations that invest in innovation during a crisis outperform peers by up to 30% during recovery, a recent McKinsey report reveals. Ironically, the same report also reveals that current corporate commitment to innovation has been decreasing as CEOs prioritize their core business in the wake of Covid-19. A brief look into the history books reveals another truth: The average life expectancy of corporations on the S&P 500 has been decreasing sharply — from 60 years in the 1950s to less than 20 today. The main reason is tech disruption, or the introduction of a new technology to market that renders all previous products obsolete.  But while tech disruption is nothing new — it’s been with us since the industrial revolution — the pace of technology adoption has increased sharply over the years. It took Americans about 50 years to adopt electricity in their homes, but only 10 to adopt the smartphone.  Then came Covid-19, which has accelerated tech adoption like never before. Amazon is hiring 100,000 new employees to meet record demand for e-commerce. Online grocery shopping has...

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Just Print It: 5 Applications of 3D Printing Shaping the Future of Healthcare

Just Print It: 5 Applications of 3D Printing Shaping the Future of Healthcare

Apr 5, 2016 |

With 3D printing, design your own personalized eyewear and made-to-fit running gear, and benefit from a host of customized prosthetics, implants, and other therapeutic devices 3D printing is expected to revolutionize healthcare fields, not unlike the way that the printing press transformed publishing. What makes the technology so significant in the medical arena is the ability to mass customize, to create personalized items that fit each individual’s body shape without tooling— such that every 3D-printed part is unique. The technology is particularly powerful because 3D printing does not require a mold, so nonstandard parts can be produced without increasing the costs of production. A growing number of pioneering companies are exploring the benefits of made-to-fit products, using 3D printing to develop cutting-edge solutions to a wide range of health problems. 1. No More Aching Feet—Customized Shoes, Orthotics Nike was recently granted a key patent for technology for 3D printing, and New Balance, Adidas and Under Armour are also planning to start using 3D printing technologies to produce midsoles this year. The advantages of the new, 3D-printed midsole are, according...

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