5 emerging healthcare technologies to watch in 2016

The department of health is surely enjoying heaps of advantages from technology and will continue to do so in the coming year as well. It is in this sphere that it becomes an absolute necessary to have a look at the top 5 emerging healthcare technologies to watch in 2016.

Needleless diabetic care

Blood sugar self-care is such a pain and troublesome all the way. It requires the need for daily insulin shots that are extremely complicated and pokes you here and there. But not any longer! Philadelphia based company Echo Therapeutics is developing technologies that would restore the poke with a patch. The company is operating on a transdermal biosensor that reads blood analytes through the skin without drawing blood.

The technology involves a handheld electric-toothbrush-like device that removes just enough top-layer skin cells to put the patient’s blood chemistry within signal range of a patch-borne biosensor. The antenna collects one reading per minute and sends the information wirelessly to a remote monitor, triggering audible alarms when levels go out of the patient’s most favorable range and checking diabetes.

Automated or robotic check-ups

A pillar of health improvement is humanizing access to the best health care to accommodate more and more people. Technology is a cost-effective and gradually more potent means to attach clinics in the gigantic and medically underserved rural regions of the US with large city medical centers and their specialists.

The RP-VITA Remote Presence Robot shaped jointly by robot Corp. and InTouch Health is the first such independent navigation remote-presence robot to receive FDA authorization for hospital use. The device is a mobile cart with a two-way video screen and medical checking equipment, programmed to scheme through the eventful halls of a sanatorium.

Reduction of melanoma biopsies

Melanoma a deadly type of skin care which can?t be diagnosed without complicated surgical biopsy. Now, with the launch of MelaFind optical scanner, it is now possible to provide extra information a doctor can use in deciding whether or not to go ahead with a biopsy.

The MelaFind technology (MELA Sciences, Irvington, NY) uses projectile navigation technologies originally paid for the department of defense to optically scrutinize the surface of a suspicious lesion at ten electromagnetic wavelengths. The collected signals are processed using heavy-duty algorithms and matched against a registry of 10,000 digital images of melanoma and varied kind of skin problems.

Valve job with heart

The Sapien transcatheter aortic valve is a life-saving alternative to open-heart surgery for patients who need new a new valve but can’t endure the rigors of the operation. Manufactured byEdwards Life Sciences (Irvine, CA), the Sapien has been available in Europe for some time but is only now finding its first use in U.S. heart centers?where it is limited only to the frailest patients thus far.

The Sapien valve is guided through the femoral artery by catheter from a small incision near the grown or rib cage. The valve material is made of bovine tissue attached to a stainless-steel stent, which is expanded by inflating a small balloon when correctly placed in the valve space. A simpler procedure that promises dramatically shorter hospitalizations is bound to have a positive effect on the cost of care.

Electronic aspirin

For people who suffer from migraines, cluster headaches, and other causes of chronic, excruciating head or facial pain, the "take two aspirins and call me in the morning" method is useless. Doctors have long associated the most severe, chronic forms of headache with the sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG), a facial nerve bundle, but haven’t yet found a treatment that works on the SPG long-term.

A technology under clinical investigation at Autonomic Technologies, Inc., is a patient-powered tool for blocking SPG signals at the first sign of a headache. The system involves the permanent implant of a small nerve stimulating device in the upper gum on the side of the head normally affected by headache. The lead tip of the implant connects with the SPG bundle, and when a patient senses the onset of a headache, he or she places a handheld remote controller on the cheek nearest the implant. The resulting signals stimulate the SPG nerves and block the pain-causing neurotransmitters.

Riya is a blogger and work with digital marketing company.