Most hospital executives and directors—nearly three in every five—believe Amazon will have the biggest impact in the healthcare market, according to a survey conducted by Reaction Data.
The survey asked 97 executives and directors from several hospitals and healthcare organizations their thoughts about which companies and emerging technologies will make the biggest splash in the healthcare industry.
Survey results show that 59 percent of executives believe Amazon will have the biggest impact in the market, citing the company’s leadership and huge market to bring about change. Additionally, 14 percent said Apple will have the biggest impact, 8 percent said Google, 7 percent said Microsoft, 4 percent said IBM, 3 percent said Walmart, another 3 percent named various companies, and 1 percent said Salesforce.
About 29 percent of hospital and healthcare organization executives believe telemedicine will have the biggest impact out of all the latest emerging technologies.
Additionally, 20 percent said artificial intelligence (AI), 15 percent said interoperability, 13 percent said data analytics, 11 percent said mobile data, 7 percent said information security, 3 percent said cloud, and 2 percent said blockchain.
The most common uses of telemedicine were for reaching patients in rural areas, follow-up care, managing specific patient populations, after-hours patient consults, preventative care and primary care visits.
“Combined, virtual services/telehealth and artificial intelligence accounted for almost half of the responses,” the report said. “This isn’t surprising due to almost three-quarters of providers indicating they are already using telemedicine. This, coupled with the fact that the patient community is becoming more tech savvy with voice assistants provided by Apple and Android smartphones and tablets.”
Artificial intelligence was also an important technology for executives. According to the survey, 65 percent of respondents said AI is important. However, 19 percent said they were neutral and 16 percent said AI wasn’t important.
Additionally, 28 percent of respondents said they’re planning to adopt AI in one to two years, 25 percent said they’re three or more years away from adopting it, 15 percent said they’ll likely never utilize AI, 14 percent said they’re already using AI, 11 percent said they’re adopting AI in the next 12 months, and 7 percent said they’ve just adopted some AI.
Danielle covers Clinical Innovation & Technology as a senior news writer for TriMed Media. Previously, she worked as a news reporter in northeast Missouri and earned a journalism degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She's also a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, Bears and Bulls.