Healthcare is already being transformed by connected technologies, Shafi Ahmed explains, and the pace of change has only accelerated during the pandemic.
Telemedicine – video consultations and remote health monitoring using wearable devices – is becoming the norm, he argues, and public acceptance is growing because people have seen just how valuable connectivity has been during lockdown.
“Virtual consultations save money and time, they’re less disruptive to people’s lives, and they relieve a lot of pressure on outpatient clinics,” says Shafi.
He envisages a future in which technologies such as internet of things, virtual reality, video calls, telepresence robots and increasingly sophisticated wearables all work together over superfast 5G networks and Wi-Fi to improve health outcomes.
Healthcare will be data-driven – our individual genomes will become a standard feature of our digitalised health records, for example – and there will be much more emphasis on preventative medicine and wellbeing, both mental and physical.
+INFO: Vodafone UK News Centre
