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Technology is bringing a wide variety of opportunities to the healthcare system. Robots and technical assistance systems are already helping in some countries with the daily care of patients. The connection of many other, everyday things make the everyday work of nursing staff much easier. Networking creates more security and can provide insights that would not be possible without it.

Improvements in the area of healthcare are urgently needed. Fewer and fewer people are taking a job in this area and the pandemic has shown in many countries how bad the healthcare systems were prepared for such dangers. At the same time, the population is getting older and the demands on healthcare are increasing.

Concentrating on the essentials
Much time in care is spent on documentation. Often, the patient files are still written by hand, indicating which services were provided and which medication was given. The time it takes to do this could be used much more efficiently. When robots that are used for healthcare are connected to the internet and their sensors provide valuable data, routine tasks become much easier or even taken over completely.

The digital hospital bed
A hospital bed that is digitalised also provides effective support for the healthcare area. Prevention of bedsores becomes easier with a bed that is online. The sensors under a mattress could detect how long a patient has been in one position and send a signal to the nurses when it has been too long. This requires real-time monitoring of the lying position, which at the same time also provides data on the quality of sleep. In the care of the elderly, many smaller, everyday necessities are made easier by networked objects. Regular taking of medication is registered by the pill box and, if necessary, it reminds you of the allocation with an acoustic signal.

Bringing back human’s dignity
Respect for life and human dignity is one of the main goals of care. Robots in healthcare are one example of how the use of new technologies can serve humanity. Thanks to the achievements in medicine, the world population is getting older and older and the increasing need for nurses can hardly be addressed without new technologies. Robots must be key and allow the nursing stuff to have more time – time that is freed up for the actual service to people.

References:

Ajami, S., & Khaleghi, L. (2015). A review on equipped hospital beds with wireless sensor networks for reducing bedsores. Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 20(10), 1007–1015. https://doi.org/10.4103/1735-1995.172797

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/healthcare-it/robotics-in-healthcare.html

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The implementation technology has already disrupted and changed many different industries. Nowadays, the need for new technologies is increasing rapidly and thus every industry is trying to bring the most innovative products or services to the market. The fashion industry, which is considered to be a fast-changing one that always has to keep up with the newest trends, has been influenced by the introduction of new technologies as well. However, those technologies mostly affected parts of the supply chain such as production or logistics, but not the core product – that are fashion wearables.

Today, fashion technology has grown at a very fast pace. The shift to e-commerce was only accelerated by the pandemic and left companies, which always focused on their stores as main selling points, vulnerable (e.g. H&M, Zara). Beyond that, robots are already set in place to cut fabrics and sew new wearables, whereas algorithms that are based on artificial intelligence are constantly observing customer behavior in the web to predict upcoming fashion trends. Nevertheless, the actual wearables have been left quite untouched so far. What opportunities could one have to implement technology in fashion pieces and what prevents companies from doing so?

Imagine living in Sweden, being exposed to cold winters. Or in The Netherlands, where the weather constantly changes and is hard to predict. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to wear something that is keeping you warm no matter how strong and quickly the winter season changes? Alpha Tauri, a brand extension of Red Bull, did exactly that and launched – together with the Deutsche Telekom – a heatable jacket. The jacket is controlled via an app on a phone. In that app the customer can set the desired temperature level of the jacket and use the battery as a portable charger for the smartphone when it is not charging the jacket.

App to set the temperature level of the Heatable Jacket (https://www.dayy.de/project/alphatauri-telekom-heatable-capsule-collection)

Why are such innovations seen so rarely in the market? First, all technologies need to be addressed to the market. Therefore, the simplest explanation is that the customers are actually not consider those innovations valuable. Concerning the price, the high costs of such implementations would increase the prices for the end consumer as well. A price that consumers might not be willing to pay. Beyond that, a reason could lay in the nature of the fashion industry itself. Since it is an industry that is an emotional one and driven by appealing designs, customers may think that technology is making wearables less fashionable and thus not worth to buy. Do you think we will see more technology implement IN the fashion? Or will the technology continue to be applied to fields around the product? What could be other reasons that prevent companies of walking that path?