{"title":"The impact of emerging technologies on healthcare needs of older people","authors":"Tal Soffer , Yoel Raban , Sigalit Warshawski , Sivia Barnoy","doi":"10.1016/j.hlpt.2024.100935","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The global elderly population is rapidly increasing resulting in a higher burden on healthcare systems. Emerging technologies may contribute to counteracting the shortage of healthcare workers and to assist the elderly in both healthcare settings and the community.</div></div><div><h3>Objective</h3><div>The study aimed to identify emerging technologies that may have a significant impact on the healthcare and social needs of the elderly, to assess their time to market, and to recommend policy measures intended to overcome entry barriers.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>A foresight study was conducted, including horizon scanning, interviews, and a survey of 76 participants who were experts from the fields of health and technology in Europe and Israel.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Thirteen emerging technologies were identified and five main areas of needs for the elderly were recognized: mobility, cognition, self-care, social life, and access to healthcare. All the emerging technologies were shown to have a high impact on healthcare needs for the elderly. The most influencing technologies were wearables, artificial intelligence apps and fall prevention devices. The most influential area of need was self-care, while the lowest area was social life. The forecast was that most technologies will reach the market as early as 2024 and will continue to evolve and impact healthcare. The significant barriers were forecasted to be high cost, lack of ease of use, and training.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The important policy measures are to increase usability and the availability of solutions, public funding, and training.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48672,"journal":{"name":"Health Policy and Technology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health Policy and Technology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211883724000984","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HEALTH POLICY & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background
The global elderly population is rapidly increasing resulting in a higher burden on healthcare systems. Emerging technologies may contribute to counteracting the shortage of healthcare workers and to assist the elderly in both healthcare settings and the community.
Objective
The study aimed to identify emerging technologies that may have a significant impact on the healthcare and social needs of the elderly, to assess their time to market, and to recommend policy measures intended to overcome entry barriers.
Methods
A foresight study was conducted, including horizon scanning, interviews, and a survey of 76 participants who were experts from the fields of health and technology in Europe and Israel.
Results
Thirteen emerging technologies were identified and five main areas of needs for the elderly were recognized: mobility, cognition, self-care, social life, and access to healthcare. All the emerging technologies were shown to have a high impact on healthcare needs for the elderly. The most influencing technologies were wearables, artificial intelligence apps and fall prevention devices. The most influential area of need was self-care, while the lowest area was social life. The forecast was that most technologies will reach the market as early as 2024 and will continue to evolve and impact healthcare. The significant barriers were forecasted to be high cost, lack of ease of use, and training.
Conclusions
The important policy measures are to increase usability and the availability of solutions, public funding, and training.
期刊介绍:
Health Policy and Technology (HPT), is the official journal of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine (FPM), a cross-disciplinary journal, which focuses on past, present and future health policy and the role of technology in clinical and non-clinical national and international health environments.
HPT provides a further excellent way for the FPM to continue to make important national and international contributions to development of policy and practice within medicine and related disciplines. The aim of HPT is to publish relevant, timely and accessible articles and commentaries to support policy-makers, health professionals, health technology providers, patient groups and academia interested in health policy and technology.
Topics covered by HPT will include:
- Health technology, including drug discovery, diagnostics, medicines, devices, therapeutic delivery and eHealth systems
- Cross-national comparisons on health policy using evidence-based approaches
- National studies on health policy to determine the outcomes of technology-driven initiatives
- Cross-border eHealth including health tourism
- The digital divide in mobility, access and affordability of healthcare
- Health technology assessment (HTA) methods and tools for evaluating the effectiveness of clinical and non-clinical health technologies
- Health and eHealth indicators and benchmarks (measure/metrics) for understanding the adoption and diffusion of health technologies
- Health and eHealth models and frameworks to support policy-makers and other stakeholders in decision-making
- Stakeholder engagement with health technologies (clinical and patient/citizen buy-in)
- Regulation and health economics