The Medical Futurist

Top 10 Healthcare Technology Trends for 2025! I hope this video is a good start for the weekend: https://lnkd.in/e5X4kEmB As The Medical Futurist, I keep a close eye on the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare technology. Every year, I share the trends I believe are most impactful, cutting through the noise to highlight what truly matters. And now, I'm excited to present my top 10 healthcare technology trends for 2025, giving you a glimpse into the future of medicine.

The US, just like every other country worldwide, is facing a significant shortage of primary care physicians. They will need 90,000 more (!) family doctors by 2037!  While a lot of Gen Zers want to be doctors (there is a 17% increase in medical students over the past decade), many of them are leaning towards specialized fields rather than primary care.  Why?  - lower salaries in primary care - a perceived lack of prestige - and medical schools emphasizing specialties.  In short: STATUS! "The next generation of doctors has a lot riding on them. The last thing the medical system — and the government — should be doing is deterring them from their job: keeping Americans healthy." Source: https://lnkd.in/evD9jBvw

A robot vacuuming the carpet. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang just brought out a humanoid robot on stage and predicted that humanoid robots will be widely used in manufacturing in less than 5 years. (as they are working on them, his prediction can be this wild) I wanted to share a shout-out to every healthcare professional who is afraid of losing their job. Please look at the Moravec paradox! It highlights that tasks requiring high-level reasoning (like analyzing CT scans) are easier for AI, while sensorimotor skills and intuition (like moving a patient or helping them feel at ease) are far harder for robots. Therefore human-centered, empathetic, and context-sensitive tasks are still uniquely human and cannot be easily automated. Source: https://lnkd.in/e87jMZ-D

Repeated failures to spot abnormalities on CTs, X-rays and other medical scans; also scans being delayed or not carried out; all lead to avoidable patient deaths and delays in diagnosing cancer. This is inevitable due to  - physician shortages - burnout - rising number of patients The only solution for this is turning to automation. Radiology is by far the most widely covered medical specialty in terms of AI-based technologies that have regulatory approvals. I wonder what such policy- and decision-makers are waiting for. Source: https://lnkd.in/eEKQH69V

It's one thing to wear a health sensor on your wrist or a belt but in your tooth? It sounds invasive. This new chip is so small yet efficient, that it could be integrated within small devices. "In terms of target applications, Silicon Labs believes that the improved processing and security, coupled with the remarkably small size of the chip, will make it instrumental in the future of smart healthcare devices.  Silicon Labs has already targeted applications such as continuous glucose monitors and smart implants as potential beneficiaries of its new chip, but the improved processing and wireless performance of the tiny chips could make them useful in a much wider range of applications." Source: https://lnkd.in/ezxQSDaz

MIT researchers have developed a new way to grow artificial muscle tissue that contracts in multiple directions, mimicking the movement of natural muscles more closely than ever before.  "𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑀𝐼𝑇 𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑤 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙, 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑐𝑙𝑒-𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑦𝑒 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑢𝑝𝑖𝑙.  𝑇𝑜 𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑠, 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑜ℎ𝑦𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑑 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑎 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑦𝑒’𝑠 𝑝𝑢𝑝𝑖𝑙 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑠." We don't pay enough attention to such 3D bioprinting-related achievements, and these news don't break through the walls of the mainstream because the methods are hard to understand and it takes a lot of time for such scientific breakthroughs to become widely accessible. Nevertheless, fascinating progress! Source: https://lnkd.in/e4jkd9Kr

So far, this is how we have analyzed the future of medicine and healthcare: Key opinion leaders, professors, and authors of research papers shared their opinions about possible future directions of their fields. It has been purely subjective. Instead, healthcare should embrace the use of established futures methods that have been around for decades and start observing and analyzing the futures(!) of the field systematically and objectively.  This is what I describe in detail in this npj Digital Medicine piece which I was invited for: https://lnkd.in/dPcuctXt I hope you will find value in it and adopt futures methods in your domains. I'm here to help if you need any.

We have designed four digital courses for you in the age of digital health and AI in healthcare. Two extended ones and two fast-track materials: - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence In Medicine And Healthcare - The Digital Health Course - The Futures Toolkit: 6 Practical Methods for Envisioning the Future - A Short Guide to Generative AI in Healthcare You will get a crystal-clear picture of each of these topics and their future.  But don't even think about getting each one while you can get them in one bundle. :) Check it out! https://lnkd.in/eY5KYGep

What if there was a weekly newsletter in which I hand-selected every single news, announcement, or study in digital health and healthcare AI you must be aware of? I even analyzed why those are important. What if it was free to subscribe? :) Here it is: https://lnkd.in/ercHH93p

The Holy Grail of wearables in epilepsy tracking would be - to predict the onset of seizures - or at least to detect a seizure and alert carers Now EpiWatch has made a small step towards these directions by getting a 510(k) clearance for its Apple Watch-powered seizure monitoring platform. It doesn't do any of the above-mentioned goals but it does everything else. "𝐸𝑝𝑖𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ'𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑧𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑝𝑝 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑛𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑧𝑢𝑟𝑒, 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑥𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑧𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠." Now they will partner with clinicians to test it in real-life settings. Source: https://lnkd.in/e5ExwCKF