Met MEDVIA, the new innovation cluster that is committed to better healthcare and wants to put Flanders on the map as a hotspot for HealthTech, we are at a tipping point. Corona has woken us all up. Today you talk to your virtual doctor, tomorrow to your digital twin?
The corona pandemic has rolled or pushed us into a digital revolution? While everyone started Zooming and the virus variants traveled around the world, every country got to work with the enormous influx of data. Sources of infection were monitored daily and predictions regulated our social distancing and prevented the overload of our hospitals.
Meanwhile, we are all data lovers. We can choose from a range of new apps, smartwatches, wearables and smart platforms for patients and consumers. They measure every step we take, how well we sleep and offer endless possibilities for remote care. A virtual visit to the doctor is already well established in the US. More than 40 percent made use of it during the corona pandemic and 80 percent would like to continue with the virtual doctor. Telehealth providers use smart chatbots, powered by natural language processing. To collect information about symptoms and forward questions to the right healthcare providers.
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Flanders is a treasure trove of HealthTech innovations. MEDVIA will act as a facilitator to boost the innovative strength and competitiveness of the Flemish innovators.
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AI, of artificial intelligence, by the way, is essential to help understand the vast amount of often unstructured data. Medical imaging data – X-rays, CT and MRI scans – as well as many other sources, including information about the spread of communicable diseases such as corona, the distribution of vaccines, genome data and even handwritten notes from doctors.
The idea of the ‘virtual patient’ is seen as one of the most important technology trends in healthcare in 2022. These digital simulations of people serve to test drugs and treatments. With the aim of reducing the time it takes to bring new drugs from the design stage to general use. Initially, this will be limited to models or simulations of individual organs or systems. However, progress is being made towards useful models that simulate the whole body.
Digital twins of human organs and systems allow doctors to research a variety of conditions and experiment with treatments without risk of harm to individual patients, while reducing the need for animal testing. It is a good example Living Heart Project, which launched in 2014 to create an open-source digital twin of the human heart. It Neurotwin-project models the interaction of electric fields in the brain. Which will hopefully lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Flanders is also a treasure trove of HealthTech innovations. With MEDVIA as facilitator, we are committed to boosting the innovative strength and competitiveness of Flemish innovators.
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