By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    UV damage to eyes
    Warning Signs of Long-Term UV Damage to Your Eyes
    December 9, 2021
    degree for healthcare job
    The Ultimate Healthcare Recruiting and Staffing Guidebook
    March 21, 2022
    medicare part d benefits
    Everything that You Need to Know About Medicare Part D
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    Beyond the Clinic: Medical Surveys Are a Roadmap to Passive Income for Doctors
    September 23, 2023
    5 Self-Care Habits to Help You Live an A+ Life
    September 21, 2023
    Keep Employees Safe & Healthy By Reducing Warehouse Injuries
    September 20, 2023
    What is Pneumonia? Causes, Treatment, and Care
    September 19, 2023
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Wellness Programs To Improve Health and Reduce Corporate Expenses
    January 20, 2012
    CMS to Announce ACO Regs Soon
    August 26, 2017
    The Future of Innovation in Health Care
    February 21, 2012
    Latest News
    Job Seekers with Disabilities Should at Health Insurance Benefits
    September 12, 2023
    Reasons That Drug Prices Are Rising to Unsustainable Levels
    September 12, 2023
    How Revenue Lifecycle Management Helps Healthcare Providers to Optimize Business Operations
    September 6, 2023
    The Hidden Benefits of Practice Exams for Medical Professionals
    September 6, 2023
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: How Healthcare Is Changing to Combat the Next Deadly Pandemic
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Aa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Aa
Search
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Policy & Law > Global Healthcare > How Healthcare Is Changing to Combat the Next Deadly Pandemic
Global HealthcarePolicy & Law

How Healthcare Is Changing to Combat the Next Deadly Pandemic

Ryan Kh
Last updated: 2022/05/27 at 8:00 PM
Ryan Kh
Share
8 Min Read
the pandemic has changed the future of healthcare
Shutterstock Photo License - fizkes
SHARE

The COVID-19 outbreak of the past two-plus years introduced the possibility of a worldwide pandemic to many people. We spent two years trying to teach people how to avoid getting infected, but have since seen much more drastic changes to our healthcare system.

Contents
Revamped Logistics for the Pharma Supply ChainMore Accurate Infection Spread ForecastsRemote Healthcare as the StandardA Resilient Stance

At first glance, conditions such as these might seem like once-in-a-lifetime events. However, global pandemics are far more common than we think, with research indicating that in any given year, there’s approximately a 2% probability of a COVID-like pandemic occurring.

Essentially, this means that a person born after 2000 has a 38% chance of seeing another dangerous outbreak. As far as pandemics go, the question is “when,” not “if.” The good news is that healthcare has made significant leaps due to the stress of the past two years, so that we’re now better prepared for the next one.

Revamped Logistics for the Pharma Supply Chain

Logistics seems like an odd place to begin when discussing healthcare. However, COVID-19 alerted us of the role logistics, and deliveries play in ensuring vaccines and medicines arrive safely. The COVID vaccines posed numerous challenges.

More Read

trust ligitation end of life

Understanding Trust Litigation When Dealing with Health Issues

The Journey to Healing: Navigating the Aftermath of Wrongful Death Claims 
Navigating Immigrant Police Encounters When Getting Healthcare
How Personal Injury Law Supports Your Wellbeing
7 Tips for Improving Reproducibility and Efficiency in the Lab

From extreme storage requirements to mass production to closures and container shortages at the ports, logistics providers turned to novel solutions to ensure consumers received vaccines on time. For instance, IoT-driven condition monitoring devices from Logmore have helped vaccine manufacturers and distributors ensure shipments were stored in optimal conditions.

The data from such devices helps providers to ensure the medicines we consume are safe. They also help pharmacies predict their storage and inventory needs. For instance, a rise in temperature data alerts pharmacies of potential damage down the road. By reacting proactively to such situations, every stakeholder in the logistics chain ensures consumers are safe.

Other advances in logistics include contactless deliveries and enhanced shipment tracking. For instance, you can track the position of your shipment and verify its origin. Medicine packages with QR codes help you trace the origin and safety of the medicines you consume, with some governments, such as the EU mandating these standards.

The result is a safer patient experience and optimal use of medicines and vaccines.

More Accurate Infection Spread Forecasts

COVID-19 introduced the phrase “contact tracing” into our daily vocabularies. Governments used advanced technology to trace the spread of the coronavirus in communities and gathered data to sequence the disease’s variants. The use of AI in modeling disease spread is now routine, thanks to the stress that COVID-19 placed on manual modeling techniques.

Epidemiological studies traditionally focused on statistical models derived from past pandemics. However, by training AI in these historical data patterns, scientists have discovered novel ways of reacting to disease outbreaks. A lot of the behind-the-scenes work in reacting to the outbreak also involved AI. For instance, social distancing policymaking, drug discovery, clinical research, and socioeconomic impact studies leaned heavily on AI use.

In a research paper published in Intelligent Medicine, scientists from Temple and Cornell documented the benefits of using “a metapopulation susceptible-exposed-infectious-removed (SEIR) model based on fine-grained and dynamic mobility networks to investigate the spread of COVID-19.” This allowed officials to build algorithms that took into account complex factors such as how susceptible to infection people are, what behaviors they might do to spread the virus while asymptomatic, and what happens when they receive various types of treatment.

Undoubtedly, the next pandemic will bring new challenges. However, AI usage during the COVID-19 pandemic has left our world better prepared to react proactively to new diseases. Not only can authorities diagnose novel viruses quickly, but they can also trace and isolate viral strains before they cause an epidemic.

Advances in natural language processing and statistical modeling techniques have helped AI algorithms model outbreaks with precision. These advances were evident in the early days of COVID. For instance, AI company Metabiota alerted its clients of a possible outbreak in Wuhan, China on December 30, 2020, nine days before the WHO acknowledged the outbreak.

Metabiota played a pivotal role in projecting infection numbers that informed public policy. On February 25, 2020, the company’s models predicted 127,000 worldwide cases of COVID, a number that was overestimated by only 30,000. The model also predicted that the disease would spread rapidly to China, Italy, Iran, and the United States.

All these predictions were inside the margin of error and helped governments ensure their citizens were safe. By the time the next pandemic occurs, advanced technological innovations such as this will undoubtedly keep our societies safe.

Remote Healthcare as the Standard

COVID-19 jeopardized human-to-human contact to a great extent. healthcare providers ran short of PPE equipment and masks. Contactless everything was in huge demand, from payments to healthcare. How does one treat patients remotely, though?

Advances in robotics and telehealth are making this dream a reality. While fully remote healthcare isn’t possible, there’s no denying that delivering healthcare remotely is far easier these days than just five years ago. Hospitals and pharmacies are less strained as a result, and doctors can prioritize medical resources better.

As a result, patients with severe diseases are more likely to receive treatment on time, while those in remote areas are less likely to suffer, due to location-based issues. Robotics might soon solve issues such as drug deliveries (through drone use) and medical diagnosis, through personal wearable devices.

When combined with the other advances in medicine, we are undoubtedly safer and better positioned to deal with the next pandemic.

A Resilient Stance

The thought of another pandemic might create a spike of fear. However, technological advances can potentially squash an outbreak before it spreads. For instance, we have learned to live with the flu, a pandemic that first broke in 1918. Advances in medicine have normalized the disease.

Advances in technology might help us proactively mitigate the next pandemic’s risks and minimize disruption. Only time will tell how the world will cope with the next health crisis, but there’s no doubt that we’re better prepared.

TAGGED: covid-19, healthcare trends, pandemic

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Ryan Kh May 27, 2022
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Copy Link Print
Share
By Ryan Kh
Follow:
Ryan Kh is an experienced blogger, digital content & social marketer. Founder of Catalyst For Business and contributor to search giants like Yahoo Finance, MSN. He is passionate about covering topics like big data, business intelligence, startups & entrepreneurship. Email: ryankh14@icloud.com
Previous Article healthcare app development 13 Mobile App Development Tips for Healthcare Startups
Next Article stress management tips while running a side hustle 7 Practical Ways to Monitor Your Stress Levels and Keep Them in Check

Stay Connected

1.5k Followers Like
4.5k Followers Follow
2.8k Followers Pin
136k Subscribers Subscribe

Latest News

Anxiety Disorder
The Importance of Nutrition in Anxiety Disorder Treatment
Anxiety September 24, 2023
spinal health
How to Advocate For Your Spinal Health In A Healthcare Setting: Strategies From Dr. Brandon Claflin
News September 24, 2023
Medical Surveys
Beyond the Clinic: Medical Surveys Are a Roadmap to Passive Income for Doctors
Health September 23, 2023
tips for neurodivergent people being pulled over
Tips for People with Neurodivergent Disorders Being Pulled Over
News September 21, 2023

You Might also Like

health insurance disability
Policy & Law

Job Seekers with Disabilities Should at Health Insurance Benefits

September 12, 2023
rising drug costs
Pharmaceuticals

Reasons That Drug Prices Are Rising to Unsustainable Levels

September 8, 2023
healthcare providers
Hospital Administration

How Revenue Lifecycle Management Helps Healthcare Providers to Optimize Business Operations

September 6, 2023
Medical Professionals exams
Medicare

The Hidden Benefits of Practice Exams for Medical Professionals

September 6, 2023
Subscribe

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Follow US
© 2008-2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?