Africa is one major continent that is usually hit with illness with many UN-led projects being established and carried out in major parts of Africa including Nigeria. Healthtech is one sector that has not been fully developed due to the level of infrastructural challenges it is faced with.
It is expected that more technological solutions will be deployed in this sector with a bid to mitigate the level of health issues occurring in Africa and increase the level of access to health insurance by Africans.
While there is still the problem of the brain drain of health workers as most of them are being snatched up by foreign fully developed countries. It is believed that technology solutions that educate people about their health and programs which will teach people better ways to take care of themselves as more people keep getting their hands on smartphones and have access to faster internet will increase in the year 2023.
Here are some of the trends expected to take place in the health-tech sector.
Increased Reliance on Data
The healthcare sector heavily relies on data, as it keeps evolving more into a digital-first approach. It is expected that the new technologies which will be developed in the health tech sector will rely heavily on data. This data will be used by the technologies developed to make critical decisions and administer the needed care to patients and the successful cases will be recorded and used to earmark new medical solutions to treat future patients.
Increase in Wearables
As smartphones are being imbued with high-speed internet and technology and the development of wearables like the Apple smartwatch, which have been known to track health status. Smart wearables which will be able to track health status and notify users of critical conditions will be on the rise. It is expected that health tech will experience more advancement in this sector which includes smart wearables that notify doctors or healthcare centers of patient conditions especially patients with conditions like diabetics, hypertension etc.
Introduction of AI in Healthcare
Artificial intelligence is gaining traction in every sector these days and is expected to adopt more into the health-tech sector. As the data provided by health centers and hospitals increases, there is a need for a developed system for processing large amount of data to provide insights for medical diagnosis, drug discovery, and development. It could also be used for medical imaging and patient monitoring.
AI can be used to identify patterns in health data that were previously undetectable by humans. For example, AI can use big data from wearable devices and other health-related sources to generate real-time analytics for personalized treatments.
Increase Development in mHealth
According to an investment report by Briter Bridges, African health startups and biotech raised $392m in funding in 2021, an 81% increase from $110m in 2020. Although this little compared to what was raised in funding by Fintech in that same year. However, Africa’s health-tech sector is gaining momentum and an increase in access to private-sector funding and VC will help drive research and biotechnology.
This would definitely impact mobile health, with the widespread adoption of 5G enabled smartphones and mobile devices as well as digital technologies will lead to an increase in the development of mHealth products and services. mHealth will provide patient with numerous offers such as improved patient care, reduce costs and increased access to healthcare services for both providers and patients.
