In the report, futurist Ray Hammond said the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated the technological advancements in health and medical science, delivering new technologies years earlier than predicted.
One of the latest trends set to revolutionise health and wellbeing in Australia is using virtual wards, which include devices offering virtual snapshots of patients' vital signs. This week, Allianz Care Australia (Allianz Care) launched a home treatment program for overseas student health insurance members who require cancer treatment in Australia.
Hammond predicts that non-critical patients may soon be treated at home in a virtual ward fitted with various on-body sensors, including fingertip oximeters that measure blood oxygen levels and sensors that detect and record pulse rates, body temperature, sleep patterns, blood glucose levels, respiration levels, and heart electrical activity.
Read more: Allianz Care introduces home care for cancer
The report also identified telehealth as another trend that will improve health and wellbeing in Australia, noting that the global use of telehealth was 78 times higher in February 2021 than in 2020, resulting in the emergence of pay-as-you-go apps to enable remote consultations with doctors.
“For patients seeking medical advice in an overloaded primary healthcare system, these on-demand apps provide patients the convenience of same-day consultations without the fear of spreading illnesses to doctors or others they may meet at a clinic,” it said.
Lastly, the report claimed that personalised treatment is the “next frontier” following the federal government's decision to allocate over half a billion dollars for COVID MBS PCR tests – resulting in the expansion of laboratories' testing capability to meet demand. Moreover, during the lockdowns in 2020, the UK health system performed up to 5,000 COVID tests daily, which led to the creation of a vast diagnostics network allowing up to 1.9 million COVID tests to be performed daily.
Commenting on the findings, Darren Thomas, head of medical networks at Allianz Partners, said: “The pandemic has rapidly revolutionised health technology in just over two years, resulting in developments being adopted now that would have normally taken 10 to 20 years to evolve. We're committed to providing a range of healthcare options to our members. We see health technology as providing long-term benefits to members, allowing them to access better healthcare and to live independently.”
