How Technology is Helping Life Science Adapt to the New Normal

New technologies are helping the life science industry fight against the present critical situation.

FREMONT, CA: COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis. Most nations across the world have been impacted with millions infected with the virus and hundreds of thousand people losing their life fighting with the COVID-19 virus. This global pandemic is one of the largest global health crises since the Spanish flu of the early twentieth century. Lockdowns were implemented across geographies for much of the first half of the year to stop the spread of the virus. The social distancing protocol guidelines recommended by the healthcare departments is impacting the business operations of industries, including the healthcare industry. Companies are investing in technologies and information technology for business continuity. The Healthcare industry, which has traditionally been a slow adopter of new and upcoming technology, is also investing in the digitalization of the industry.

We have listed below the technology implementation in some of the spheres of the healthcare industry.

Public health: National and international healthcare authorities are collaborating with information technology and software providers to launch mobile applications for contact tracing, surveillance, and tracking the health status of citizens. 

Through these mobile applications, governments across nations are spreading awareness and providing information on the nearest testing centers to its citizen.

Hospitals: COVID-19 virus is highly contagious, and is some geographies have reached the level of community transmission. Hence, health care professionals are overburdened, and the hospitals are running out of staff. With more of the medical care professionals focussed on treating COVID-19 patients, hospitals are using telemedicine to diagnose, monitor, and treat non-COVID-19 patients, making healthcare services accessible in areas heavily impacted by the pandemic. Healthcare professionals and patients are interacting through video conferences for treatment.

Clinical trials: COVID-19 is a new virus, and there is no vaccine available to treat the patients infected by the virus at present. Hence, it is a global urgency to develop a vaccine. Most of the pharma companies, backed by the governments and other private sectors, are working around the clock to develop the COVID-19 vaccine and run clinical trials before they can manufacture it commercially for the global population. Due to the urgency and limited time, healthcare and contract research organization are relying on technology such as artificial intelligence and big data to wide-scale clinical trials with little turnaround time. Data analysis and data modeling tools are used to study the data gathered through clinical trials.