MedTech Technology Trends 2022

The MedTech industry is experiencing extraordinary disruption, from affordability challenges, shifting patient expectations and the pressure to find innovative products and services to create value. The metaverse creates opportunities for truly humanized digital MedTech ecosystems that meet customer needs across the value chain—manufacturing, sales, after-sales service, training, and supply chain management. A true opportunity to transform payer, provider, healthcare professional (HCP) and consumer experiences for improved patient care.

In this year’s Technology Vision, we like to present to you how today’s technology innovations are becoming the building blocks of our collective future. The trends investigate the entire spectrum, from the virtual to the physical world, across the MedTech ecosystem and devices alike. Enter the Metaverse Continuum.

WebMe makes diagnostics, treatment and monitoring understandable and accessible to patients via the MedTech devices, solutions and platforms. It acts as the interface, often, between the physical and virtual.

A key potential game changer is augmented reality (AR) and its application across customer service, compliance assurance and customer experiences. In fact, 99 percent of MedTech executives report their organization would consider using AR in the next three years. AR creates opportunities for experts to meet where real-world limitations would have prevented meetings in the past.

From image-based diagnosis in radiology and dermatology to surgery, to patient monitoring and assistance—more than nine out of ten (91 percent) of MedTech executives report that their organization is dependent on AI technologies to function effectively. This is significantly higher than the 80 percent average response from other industries. But to make good decisions, AI needs to learn by interpreting results.

Computing muscle could significantly enhance data-rich research and development processes. More computing power means research faster better-quality research and development at a lower cost. Regarding data science as a product, or feature of a product, gives MedTech companies a different paradigm for execution focused on a tangible outcome.

Faster analysis of patient usage patterns can help to improve patient experiences, while clinical trial efficiency and site selection can be improved through artificial intelligence (AI). Computing the Impossible will provide a platform for lightning-fast device and medical solution research and development.

MedTech companies stand at a unique precipice in time. While much of this technology is still in the early adopter phase, there are signals that the future world will bring us closer to meeting the unmet needs of patients, employees and healthcare professionals in previously unimagined ways. It will be about putting humanity at the core by designing better experiences for improved outcomes for our patients, improving the HCP experience and having better and more resilient supply chains.

Who better than the MedTech industry to appreciate that they must manage the risks carefully? Leaders are not just pioneering new digital future, but a new future for human and enterprise interaction, and many of the rules remain undefined. It is critical that MedTech companies take steps to shape the Metaverse Continuum proactively and responsibly.