Technology and its trends for society according to Accenture Research

The five trends and their development are:

• Artificial intelligence as a new user interface: artificial intelligence is gaining an ever more important role in the technological experience with the potential of making all interfaces simple and elegant. Robots are working alongside people. Selections are being made to increase and enhance clinical decision-making. Health plans have an ever larger amount of structured and unstructured data that can be used to improve the decision-making and to give support in diagnoses. Eighty-four percent of company leaders in the health sector believe that artificial intelligence will be the way forward in obtaining information and interacting with users, in fact 72% have already contracted virtual assistants to improve their relationship with the users. Some developed examples are “HealthTap”, an online medical consultancy that gives immediate access 24/7 to more than 107,000 doctors via voice or text messages or voice, or Dr. Ai, a medical robot that automatically translates the symptoms of a person into the diagnosis that has to be followed, using advanced algorithms and great medical knowledge.
• The power of ecosystems: up to the present time, platforms have been understood as systems that allow different applications to be run under the same environment with the possibility of accessing via the Internet, and which connect the provider services to the needs of the users. The need therefore arises of creating digital partners to form a future stable entrepreneurial ecosystem, as an ecosystem integrates certain resources and actions that allow the message of an entity to achieve more effective communications. These ecosystems aim to connect the capacity, experience and services that concern the health organisations with the consumers and doctors. Ninety percent of leaders of companies of the health sector believe that it is essential to adopt business platforms and thus to form a stable ecosystem. It must be stressed that 66% of the leaders are beginning to participate in digital ecosystems.
• Jobs market: the leaders of digital platforms in the health sector seek new strategies to improve their payroll. The online jobs market platforms allow for staff searches in different areas (technology, finance, HR, etc.). This fact, compared with any rigid hierarchy, makes the organisation more flexible, competitive and at the same time reduces employment expenses. In any case, the questions will always arise as to whether with these online platforms the quality of the medical staff falls, or whether the security measures work. Despite this possible scepticism, there are great possibilities of efficiency and productivity. American’s Well Exchange uses mobile and virtual technology to raise virtual barriers and benefit both doctors and patients. Consumers have comfortable and immediate access to a series of doctors certified for telehealth queries.
• Design by humans: evolving technologically is a good symptom, but it must not be forgotten that the beneficiary of this situation is the human being, so the technological designs that are carried out must always be created in accordance with human behaviour. In this way, the relationships with the users, albeit patients and doctors, are improved and bring humans still closer to the technology. Modern technologies are being designed to adapt to human behaviour and thus to optimise the clinical experience. This is a great change from the current paradigm, in which the doctors have had to learn the technology and adapt to it. More than 80% of leaders in the health sector believe that there is a vacuum between what users want and what they need, which is why the technology must be adapted to them.
• The unknown: apart from creating new products and services, the health companies are now shaping new digital industries. This means that new laws have to be created to regulate this new scenario, working in cooperation with other bodies and members of the common ecosystem in order to protect it. A balance must be sought between security, privacy and confidence in the middle of the high risks of healthcare; for instance, when work is done with data, they must be duly protected so that the information is shared in the best possible way. 60% of the leaders are shaping new digital industries, but just 42% have joined a consortium for self-regulation.