Key Cardiovascular Technology Trends

MedTech Outlook | Wednesday, April 07, 2021

Innovative technologies open doors of opportunities for cardiac care.

FREMONT, CA: Sound, rate, rhythm, structure, function are some features of the heart that are measured to keep it healthy. Recently, an army of digital health technologies joined the legacy preventive tools in cardiology to counter heart failure or any other cardiovascular risks. In the future, these technologies could strengthen cardiac care. Here are some technologies that are revamping the future of cardiovascular technology.

• Artificial Intelligence

Once science fiction is now starting to gain U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) market clearance. Some AI innovations are already being used without clinicians knowing it, being integrated into the backend of cardiology and radiology IT and reporting systems to help accelerate work. AI is assisting augment cardiologists and medical imaging. Several vendors offer AI-automated calcium scoring software for cardiac CT scans, generating the report quantification information in seconds and color-coding the calcium by vessel segment on the dataset slices.

• Wearable Technologies

Smart software and AI is being integrated into the wearable and app algorithms to identify abnormally high heart rates, arrhythmias, and other factors to alert patients to consult their doctors. These consumer-grade early warning tools will likely play a significant role in the coming years to automatically triage heart patients and help know when they should seek professional healthcare help.

• Virtual and Augmented Reality

Large cardiology device vendors now use augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) for staff training. VR headsets with pre-loaded live electrophysiology device implant cases provide a 360-degree view of the EP lab and the procedure.  The VR headset training puts the operators into a virtual cath lab with a complete view of the room and equipment to perform the imaging.

• Big Data 

Analytics is now the main priority for most hospitals and subspecialty departments. Data analytics from structured reports are being leveraged to find workflow bottlenecks, monitor staff workloads, track numbers of operations, disease types, patient outcomes, inventory, tracking costs, equipment usage, and many more. What took hours to pull numbers for in reports a few years ago can now be automated, and questions can be answered in seconds. It is a new, efficient way to manage staff, patient care, and the medical business.

See also: Top Healthcare AR VR Solution Companies