The Emerging Impact of Digital Biomarkers on the Healthcare Sector
Digital technologies are constantly enhancing several sectors, including healthcare. Earlier, the healthcare sector was entirely reliant on devices such as arm cuffs and thermometers for checking the body temperature and blood pressure.
However, today these devices have been replaced by highly advanced wearable devices such as smart rings and smartwatches.
Similarly, the neurologist experts were completely dependable on expensive and invasive techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) to scan neurological diseases in patients. However, the present healthcare sector has started using digital approaches that allow better monitoring, accessing, and detection of such diseases.
The digitalization of the healthcare sector is set to alter the way medical experts monitor, treat, manage, and diagnose different health conditions. Digital biomarkers are also helping to enhance the present health measurements as well as pioneer new future improvements.
To learn and have a better idea, let’s discuss digital biomarkers and how they are advancing healthcare.
Digital Biomarkers-A Brief Introduction:
Digital biomarkers are defined as a technique of collecting quantifiable physiological, behavioral, and objective data using various digital devices such as wearable, digestible, implantables, and portables.
Let’s understand these with some examples as follows:
- Changes in speech and slowdown movements of the body parts can be measured digitally to identify the presence of various nervous system illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease
- Changes in processing speed, spatial memory, perceptual coordination of the motors, and gait can be measured using digital devices to identify the presence of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
- Changes in gait and walking speed can directly be measured through wearable devices and indicate the risk chances of falling in older adults.
The continuous increase in the usage of portable and wearable is generating immense data and providing healthcare experts with entirely new medical information.
Digital biomarkers are filled with capabilities to provide actionable insight into individual patients while allowing better health monitoring and helping to detect diseases in the early stage. They can also help to enable more effective and efficient clinical studies and research studies.
How are digital biomarkers advancing the healthcare sector?
As the amount of digital data continues to rise, healthcare and researchers have begun adopting digital biomarkers as a technique that is more efficient and has a robust option to collect data.
When this massive amount of collected health data is paired with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, healthcare experts can explore better treatment options.
It allows them to track patterns and trends for several disorders and diseases in a much-unsophisticated manner and helps to take better steps for curing them.
A wider variety of traditional assessments and procedures performed inside hospitals and clinics is being replaced by digital biomarkers. It is primarily due to its benefits, such as cost-effective options and non-invasive techniques for monitoring and diagnosing different diseases.
Market Insight of the Global Digital Biomarkers:
The digital biomarkers market has witnessed prominent growth in the recent few years.
The key factors pushing the growth rate of the biomarkers market are the increasing adoption rate of mHealth applications, rising interest of people in telemedicine, and high adoption of wearable medical technologies.
According to the BIS Research report, the global digital biomarkers market is expected to grow from a market value of $1,808.3 million in 2021 to $16,174.0 million by 2028, with a CAGR of 36.06% during the period from 2022 to 2028.
Based on region, North America is supposed to dominate the market due to the existence of advanced infrastructure of healthcare and a better focus level on development and research-related activities.
However, a few factors are hindering the growth of the global digital biomarkers devices market, such as low return on investment rate and the absence of interoperability and standardized solutions.
Also, people are concerned over the risk of errors and invasion of privacy with digital devices over conventional methods.
Digital Biomarkers Applications in Psychiatry:
The current methods used for psychiatric assessment are resource-intensive, time-consuming, and require highly trained healthcare experts for evaluation.
However, adopting digital biomarkers for treating mood disorders and mental illnesses such as bipolar and depressive disorder will allow us to enable cost-effective, timely, and scalable solutions for psychiatric assessments.
Digital wearables devices will help experts to detect mood illness by checking the sleep time, movements, and behavior of the patients.
Conclusion
Digital biomarkers can significantly help healthcare shift from traditional ways of collecting data to digital ways. This change will not only help in getting better and more meaningful insights about diseases but will also allow experts to analyze more and more data to predict their future outcomes.
