A healthy outlook?
From nanotechnology to robotic surgery, PMI Health Group’s Compliance Director Mike Blake considers what the future of healthcare will look like in the coming decades.
The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive. So announced the late science fiction writer John Sladek – but can this vision truly be applied to the future of healthcare?
Predictions about the future of healthcare have one advantage over other attempts to ‘horizon scan’. We at least have some idea of what research and pioneering efforts are currently taking place. And we can reasonably assume many of these will reach their potential sometime in the (hopefully near) future. Predicting exactly when they will happen, and what impact they will have, is the trickier part.
There are certainly a few global trends we can be reasonably sure of. People (certainly in the developed world) will continue to live longer, demand for healthcare services will continue to rise, and public healthcare systems will struggle to keep pace with that rising demand.
Consequently, conditions associated with old age (memory loss, organ failure) will assume growing importance in the priorities of healthcare systems. At the same time, patient expectations will continue to grow, cost pressures and demands for value for money won’t go away, and competing demands will fight it out for their share of resources.
And all the while technology and innovation will quietly continue at universities and laboratories across the globe – meaning we live even longer and routinely survive and overcome illnesses and conditions which once killed us or ruined our quality of life.
Recent decades have seen enormous progress (just think of the advances in organ transplantation technology between the 1960s and 1980s). But the other certainty is we will continue to see life changing innovations in the years ahead.
Growth industry
Take advances in regenerative medicine – the science of stimulating damaged tissues and organs to heal themselves, and the technique of using stem cells to grow new body parts in a laboratory. This emerging technology, led largely by the incredible team at the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, has the potential to offer patients fully functioning replacements for organs which suffer from congenital defects or have become diseased, damaged, or simply old.
Because they are grown from the patient’s own stem cells these organs won’t be rejected by the body’s immune system. And crucially they offer the tantalising possibility that the worldwide problem of organ donor shortage can be overcome.
Already we have seen the successful implantation of laboratory grown bladders as well as wind pipes. Human trials of other organs are expected in the next few years and the development of three dimensional printers is underway which spray not ink but living cells to create new tissue and organs. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction.
Small is beautiful
Nanotechnology – creating functioning ‘machines’ at the molecular level - offers similarly massive potential, particularly in the area of preventative medicine. The age old saying that ‘prevention is better than cure’ has never had more resonance.
Already we’ve seen the development of anti-microbial (nanoparticle) coatings which can prevent the spread of viruses, fungi and bacteria. Future possibilities include the deployment of nanotechnology to monitor patient’s health and vital functions. It’s also expected to play a greater part in improved early detection of disease.
Personalised care
Nanotechnology also features heavily in another emerging healthcare trend – that of the increasing personalisation of patient care. The big idea is to move away from the use of general techniques, procedures, and medication which work for some patients but not for others. Instead, individually tailored treatments are developed – often based on a patient’s unique DNA profile. Earlier screening, detection and prevention measures will also play a part and there’s the possibility of reducing the side effects suffered by some patients taking certain medications.
In this area, nanotechnology is already being deployed to create asthma drugs which are more quickly absorbed into the body. And it’s helping diabetics avoid the need for regular insulin injections through the development of devices with nanoscale pores which slowly release the drug over several weeks.
More personalised care, of course, has huge potential for improved provision through employee healthcare schemes.
Robotic surgery
In the hospital surgery, the use of robotics has been allowing surgeons to perform procedures with greater precision and accuracy for a number of years. Although expensive, this technology has a number of advantages. Crucially it’s less invasive, meaning far smaller incisions are required than normal. This results in reduced post operative complications, less pain and scarring and quicker recovery potential. Again, the implication for human resources is positive – employees taking time off to have operations can expect to be at work sooner than they would in the past.
The first pancreatic transplant was carried out using robotic surgery last October, while the first kidney transplant was done in 2009. It’s still an emerging technology and is only used for a small number of procedures. However, the potential for further applications (and improvements) are currently being explored. In the future, wireless communications technology means it could also allow doctors to perform procedures hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away from the patient. And it could also mean fewer people are required in operating theatres.
Further off are innovations such as microbots, miniature machines designed to be swallowed and reassembled inside the human body where they can obtain clinical data or even carry out procedures. This has even been dubbed one of the ‘holy grails’ of medicine. Some hospitals, in fact, are already using ‘pill cameras’ which are swallowed by patients to take pictures of their digestive system.
Move from secondary to primary care
Here in the UK, recent uncertainty over health service reforms has rarely been out of the news. However, even if the proposals are watered down, the trend towards treating patients in primary instead of secondary care settings is here to stay. Hospital treatment is unpopular with patients, it’s expensive and improvements in techniques and treatments mean it’s often no longer necessary.
What’s more, developments in mobile and wireless communications technology are also opening the possibility of patients being monitored, and even treated, more in their own homes. And if homes are a possibility – why not workplaces?
A revolution in the making
Taken together, these advances in medical technology alongside improvements in procedures, techniques and medication, have the potential to have a revolutionary impact on human health in the coming decades.
The implication for employers and business is, of course, immense. In theory at least we should lose fewer employees to ill health and if they do require treatment we may reasonably expect them to recover more quickly. And the need for more employee healthcare and risk management will undoubtedly grow.
Living longer and retiring later means aging workforces and, with healthcare advances resulting in rising costs, we could see the advent of special policies tailored for older workers. The role of occupational health professionals is also likely to evolve with increasing emphasis needing to be placed on workplace adjustments to enable these workers to best carry out their tasks. This could mean that as some technologies become mainstream, the scope of what is a reasonable adjustment may expand to encompass the new technologies.
The future may be unwritten, but for many of the world’s population it may well prove to be longer and healthier than they could ever have predicted.
