The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated the projected timeline for many developments in healthcare and medical science. This has resulted in the delivery of new treatments and medicines years earlier than previously predicted. Allianz Partners has today launched ‘COVID-19: How it accelerated the Future of Healthcare’, a follow-up report dummy The World in 2040 from series. The new report, commissioned from futurist Ray Hammond, explores the unprecedented acceleration of healthcare and medical trends outlined in the original publication just three years ago.

Allianz Partners is a world leader in B2B2C assistance and insurance solutions, delivering global protection and care, including health insurance and related services. The COVID-19: How it accelerated the Future of Healthcare report examines what the impact of the pandemic means on the future of healthcare, science and technology. These kinds of insights are important when it comes to ensuring that a health insurance proposition is fit for customer needs, today and in the future.  

The pandemic sparked a mammoth collective effort from the global health and science community to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible, the results of which are transforming medical science. The world now sits on the verge of several potentially significant breakthroughs, mostly thanks to the ongoing research into high-tech, gene-based vaccines, which could now benefit patients with cancer, heart disease and infectious diseases.

The most significant advancement in medical science since the outbreak of the pandemic has been the rapid application, development and deployment of genetic mRNA technologies. By December 2021 more than eight billion vaccine doses had been administered around the world and more than 4.4 billion people had received one or more doses of a vaccine— about 56% of the world’s population*.

The technologies developed to produce the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines are now being used to develop further treatments. Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine are currently tackling a vaccine for malaria, while heart tissue damaged during heart attacks is now being successfully regenerated in animal trials by researchers at King’s College London. Moderna has begun a trial for a HIV vaccine. Clinical trials of new drugs and treatments have also been re-designed and speeded up without incurring additional health risks for test participants.

Covid-19 has had a terrible cost to human lives across the globe. However, the medical innovations resulting from the pandemic may save the lives of many in the years to come.

The original ‘dummy Future Health, Care and Wellbeing’ report by Ray Hammond predicted that healthcare would be delivered remotely by 2040, using digital technology. Telehealth was an emerging trend in 2019 and consumers who needed instant medical advice were consulting doctors virtually using an app on their smartphones. The original report predicted that even if 20 percent of patients used new technologies to take more responsibility for their wellbeing over the next ten years, the burden on doctors’ offices and hospitals would be substantially reduced.

Covid-19 accelerated this practice dramatically, as the use of telemedicine, virtual wards and health technology has become commonplace across the world, to treat patients remotely and reduce the risk of spreading the virus. The implementation of new technologies and digital health greatly reduced the burden on hospitals and doctors during the pandemic, and these trends are here to stay.  

For example, non-critical patients treated at home in a virtual ward are fitted with an array of on-body sensors including finger-tip oximeters which measure the metric of oxygen levels circulating in their blood. Other sensors detect and record pulse rates, body temperature, sleep patterns, blood glucose levels, respiration levels and the heart’s electrical activity. Patients with respiratory problems can use a wireless stethoscope which will allow doctors to listen to lung performance remotely. For babies, there are even smart socks which keep track of vital signs. 

The original report predicted that soon, informed patients would be monitoring their blood pressure, blood glucose levels, potassium levels and other key health indicators with fashionable wearable devices, without the need for cumbersome equipment or invasive blood testing. Covid-19 has accelerated this practice considerably, and now technological capabilities in healthcare are extensive.

Today, health technology goes well beyond the traditional smart watch, with devices offering consumers and medics virtual snapshots of a patient’s vital signs. As the virtual ward develops and more patients are treated at home, other sensors and monitors are now providing additional information about the health and wellbeing of the patients to medics. These wireless sensors include mats which can detect changes in a patient’s gait, cameras for patient observation, motion sensors, electric plug and switch sensors, door sensors, humidity sensors and ambient temperature sensors.

In the near future, monitoring patients in the virtual wards introduced over the past two years will become less time-consuming as artificial intelligence systems (AI) assume the role of monitoring the patients 24 hours a day. 

Allianz Partners is a world leader in B2B2C insurance and assistance, offering global solutions that span international health and life, travel insurance, automotive and assistance. Customer driven, our innovative experts are redefining insurance services by delivering future-ready, high-tech high-touch products and solutions that go beyond traditional insurance. Our products are embedded seamlessly into our partners’ businesses or sold directly to customers, and are available through four commercial brands: Allianz Assistance, Allianz Automotive, Allianz Travel and Allianz Care. Present in 75 countries, our 21,500 employees speak 70 languages, handle over 71 million cases each year, and are motivated to go the extra mile to help and protect our customers around the world.

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