The constant development of technological advances in healthcare is creating a completely new approach to nursing practices that are proving beneficial to both employees and patients. While the Covid-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for much of the sudden technological changes in healthcare practices, these advances have been continuously improving throughout the last few decades. As we move into the next phase of industry development, the following technologies are predicted to have a lasting impact on the healthcare industry as a whole.

As with many industries throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare has gone digital. While telehealth services are nothing new, the sudden urgency for contactless medical care has caused their popularity to skyrocket in recent months.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitals and other health care facilities have been forced to reevaluate their IT protocols in order to ensure the safety of patients, visitors and staff. According to the University of Washington Medicine, several critical steps should be taken in healthcare IT departments to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, particularly Covid-19.

As part of this heightened information technology protocol, existing technologies such as the Rauland Responder system, are becoming an increasingly popular non-contact method of communicating with patients. Unlike traditional close-contact communication where nurses and other medical personnel have to do PPE each time they enter the patient’s room, the nurse call system allows medical personnel to attend to every non-urgent patient need without utilizing precious personal protective equipment.

One of the key technologies in Coronavirus detection is temperature scanning. The widespread dissemination of this technology allows elevated body temperature to be detected at the early stages of infection. The temperature scanning technology itself involves the use of thermal imaging cameras that can detect elevated temperatures from one to two meters away, allowing an easy non-contact solution to taking temperatures in particularly high-traffic areas.

Perhaps one of the most talked about methods of combating the novel coronavirus, contact tracing is gaining traction as a key component in the push to reopen the economy. Whether traditionally via public health officials contacting infected and potentially infected individuals or virtually via widespread smartphone technologies, there’s no question that contact tracing is critical in the identification and spread of Covid-19.

In order to help businesses understand how to successfully reopen their doors, the WHO has shared information concerning how to prevent the spread of the virus at work, how to deal with high-contact situations such as meetings and events, business travel considerations and workplace readiness in case infections (re)surface within their communities.

This Brookings article shares while initially, South Korea struggled to respond promptly to contain COVID-19, which led to a spike in the number of infections in the country. In late February, South Korea soon became the country with the second-highest COVID-19 infections after China. Korea has since implemented several measures to effectively “flatten the curve” and provide timely medical care to the infected.