Healthcare Technology Trends in 2024 and Beyond

Are you prepared for the long-term effects?

This article was inspired by the Emerging Tech Trends 2024 report from The Future Institute. 

Do you know what I would look for if I were the owner of a scientific consulting firm, a private practice, or the head of a non-profit that promoted gender equity, searching for a service provider to help with my online presence?

 I’d look for someone who was tuned into the future. 

 As someone in the healthcare marketing industry, I follow other healthcare marketing accounts. The other day, I saw a post from a colleague's account that was, simply put, generic. I don't mean this as a negative thing. In fact, I'm sure some of my content might strike you as generic. 

 After all, millions of people on Instagram are all talking about the same things.

 It read something like, “Have you noticed fewer people are finding your practice online? You aren’t imagining it. Healthcare marketing has changed. Here’s how.”

 Then, you had to read the caption to figure out how. An effective post for someone ready for a solution and looking for a provider. However, I’ve been around the healthcare marketing block a few times, so I thought – how can I take this a step further for my potential clients? The ones who aren’t sure about me yet? Or who are tired of hearing the same refrains?

 As I discussed in last week’s article on Rethinking How We Do Online Business, I've been deeply into The Future Institute recently, exploring trends in biotech and health for 2024. 

 Their founder, Amy Webb, gives a talk at South by Southwest every year, and she says this about the time we’re living in.

“We believe we have entered a technology supercycle. Driving this seismic shift are the titans of technology and three of their inventions: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and a burgeoning ecosystem of interconnected wearable devices. The ramifications are stark and undeniable. 

As this tech supercycle unfurls, there will be victors and vanquished, those who seize the reins of this epochal change, and those who are swallowed whole. Understanding this tech supercycle is paramount for business leaders, investors, and policymakers.” - Amy Webb

 While listening to her chat with Brene Brown about this time ahead of us, all I could think about were my clients: the physicians, the consultants, the aestheticians, the non-profit leaders. Would they be victors or vanquished? Would I be a victor, or would I be vanquished?

 If I were in the healthcare industry at this moment in time, I would want someone on my side who was open to the future and willing to discuss how it may change everything we do, from advancements in electronic health to patient empowerment. Someone who was willing to admit they didn’t have all the answers but was excited to discuss the questions. 

 I don’t know who will emerge “on top” out of this supercycle, but I know people won’t pretend they can make it through without long-term planning and a willingness to adapt. 

 So, let’s look at what we can expect from the next 10 years - what will shape digital health, healthcare, and the media we use to broadcast healthcare information. 

 Frankly, my friends, we aren’t doing a great job of having nuanced conversations around healthcare practices right now. Scientific and media literacy is not high. Research findings are often turned into pop science fixes, impacting healthcare professionals when patients start taking matters into their own hands.

So, how can we use these trends to shape the future we want to see for ourselves and our patients?

Trend #1: Bioengineering/Biotechnology

From cellular reprogramming to gene editing, healthcare and medicine have quickly become inseparable from digital technologies and solutions. Biotechnology promises to revolutionize almost every industry, with lab-grown meat

Important Bio and Healthtech Advancements

• The ways research teams have pushed embryo testing beyond legal limits(June 2023)

• Google DeepMind’s AI was able to predict the structures for new materials(Nov 2023)

• Gene therapy for sickle cell anemia was approved by the FDA(Dec 2023)

• Cancer vaccine trials are underway(Jan 2024)

• GMO seeds have been sold to consumers for home gardening(Feb 2024)

Expected Short-Term Realities in Healthcare Tech

• economic growth due to CRISPR technologies, like the sickle cell anemia treatment

• the backlash against life extension technologies due to how unprepared we are to 

• support a longer-living population

• supply chain disruptions

•  increased health divide as advanced biotech treatments are only accessible to a select few

•  regulatory pressures

• Misinformation

Reflecting on Trends in Healthtech and Long-Term Impact

 As companies continue to innovate, the economy and lifespan will boom, but we’ll also see wealth disparities widen, misinformation spread as new tech spreads, and pushback against innovation in digital health.

 None of this is new, so if you’re in the biotech sector, are you prepared for trends in 2024? Are you best poised to take advantage of new innovations? Are you invested in ways to offer novel treatments like cancer vaccines or sickle cell treatment to people who can’t necessarily afford it? 

 Where we can help: combatting misinformation through marketing that builds a trusting relationship

 We already addressed that misinformation is currently widespread. If it’s potentially poised to become more rampant as a backlash to increased innovation, you need to be ready to combat that, too.

“In the coming decade, trends in healthcare technology will cause leaders to confront their core beliefs about their business models, products, and services.

In the meantime, businesses must seek out new partnerships, develop new pipelines for talent, and align stakeholders on the moral and ethical uses of engineered biology.” -Emerging Tech Trends 2024 Report

I included this quote because it didn’t surprise me. I’ve long called for a change to how we market and sell—a move away from marketing based on fear and shame. Particularly in the healthcare industry, marketing is often centered around the belief that a certain service provider is the only one who can solve an ailment, but healthcare trends show a shift towards more patient-centered approaches. 

If there was ever a time to rethink how we do business, it’s now. The world needs empathy, vulnerability, and meaningful connections as we navigate this supercycle and its ethical ramifications.

On a positive note, these advancements in healthcare systems are the bee's knees. I’m so excited about them, and I hope to be able to write about them as my clients adopt them in the years to come. A few of them are truly like sci-fi novels come to life.

• Quantum biology.

• Organs-on-a-chip

• Minimum viable lifeforms

• Space farms

• Cultivated collagen

• “De-extincting” certain species, like the woolly mammoth

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Trend #2: Healthcare Systems and Medicine 

Healthcare has long been shifting away from traditional models that put all of the faith in the care provider and toward consumer-directed care, from apps to telehealth and a wave of popularity for alternative treatments and functional care.

In the last year, this field has mimicked biotech in that there is very little barrier anymore between healthcare and tech. They are intertwined. Neuroscience made strides in 2023, as did a more holistic approach to healthcare, with research looking more intensely at microbiomes and environmental factors as contributors to disease. Breakthrough treatments were made, like the sickle cell gene therapy that was approved by the FDA, significantly impacting the healthcare sector.

Important Healthcare Advancements

• Brain images reconstructed using fMRI(March 2023)

• Three-parent baby born in UK to prevent maternal mitochondrial disease(May 2023), highlighting the dynamic nature of healthcare in 2024.

• DNA manipulated through electric signals(July 2023)

• Neural firing translated into speech(Aug 2023)

• Synthetic human embryo(Sep 2023)

Expected Short-Term Developments for the Future of Healthcare Systems and Healthcare Settings

• Rising consumer expectations due to increased access to information

• Fighting misinformation spread on social media & by AI

• Novel health threats

• Decreased access & quality of care

As the demand for services rises, costs are also rising while geopolitical tensions contribute to supply chain disruptions. Novel diseases emerge as climate conditions worsen. Technology can help, but outdated infrastructure and data-sharing systems might make the solutions you need hard to reach in a timely manner, especially in managing health data. 

Additionally, the doctor-patient relationship will continue to fundamentally change. Patients continue to have higher expectations of their doctors and other care providers, while healthcare and wellness become harder to separate. Patients expect holistic, high-quality treatment. Care providers need to rise to the occasion in order to improve patient care and health monitoring.

Where we can help: A strong online presence that includes accurate information and an effort toward relationship-building will attract more patients at a time when trust is harder to facilitate for healthcare organizations.

Business Growth Opportunities for Healthcare Providers

• Reskill & upskill your workforce

• Consider rethinking your products and services to cater to a consumer who is health-educated

• Make your supply chain more resilient with healthcare software

• Enhance cybersecurity

Now You Can Face Healthcare Technology Trends with Confidence

None of us truly knows what the future holds, or when it will come, as we advance towards trends in 2024. However, there’s a strong chance the next ten years will bring about transformation the likes of which we’ve never seen before. While change always brings the potential to wipe certain things out, it also brings the potential for enormous growth.

If you’re interested in discussing how human-oriented web and social copy and SEO can help you move through the changes we’ve talked about in digital health, we’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to chat about how the future of writing and organic search will change, we’d love to talk about that, too.

Contact Camille Prairie Creative Co. today. Let’s shape the future together.