Health Equity
By 2025, health technology or MedTech is growing to a size never even imagined. Telemedicine, artificial intelligence-driven diagnosis, and wearables are transforming doctor-patient interactions. Technology, however, will make health better, but it also presents some new challenges. One of the most urgent among them is health equity—where everyone, irrespective of what their background may be, has equal access to quality care and is not discriminatory against by healthcare technologies.
Learning About Bias in MedTech
Bias in medical technology occurs when technology and systems work for some individuals more than others. Some AI models used in diagnostics, for example, are learned on data from certain populations. A model learned on data for young white patients may not function as well for older or non-matching ethnicity patients. It leads to misdiagnosis or delayed treatment.
Even the most basic devices like heart monitors or pulse oximeters can produce biased data. There are some who have found that some pulse oximeters perform less well in darker-skinned individuals. These findings illustrate exactly why diversity must be considered by MedTech designers when they design and test.
Why Health Equity Matters
Health equity is equality. It’s that everyone has an equal opportunity to lead a healthy life. If there is no health equity, subgroups in marginal groups—poor communities, minority ethnic groups, or rural communities—become less healthy. If MedTech technologies are unavailable or discriminatory to some groups, existing health disparities are magnified.
Not only is it the ethical thing to do—it’s good economics too. Healthier people means lower healthcare costs and higher productivity. By making medical technology accessible and equitable, society harvests dividends.
Opening Up Access Through Innovation
Improved access to MedTech is likely the best way to increase health equity. Telemedicine, for instance, allows for distant patients to be diagnosed by physicians via the internet, without a need for a visit. Carry-around devices for heart rhythm, blood sugar, or other vital parameter monitoring can allow patients to monitor their well-being at home. Mobile applications can remind them to take medicine or receive care.
These devices are cheaper and more affordable in 2025. These devices also pose questions about how to make devices accessible for the disabled or elderly. Becoming more accessible is not always an issue of hiring more individuals but also making the technology more simplified so that anybody can utilize it.
Addressing Bias Head-On
To minimize MedTech bias, business and scientists are doing a few things. Firstly, they are educating the programs with vast datasets in such a way that algorithms take into account individuals with varying ages, sex, ethnicities, and medical histories. Secondly, they are controlling the knobs so that new devices and software are made to test whether they are fair.
Education is also required. Medical staff, such as doctors, nurses, and medical staff, need to be educated on how to identify where technology discriminates and how to come to conclusions in a sensitive manner. Patients also need to be educated about the boundaries of MedTech technologies so that they can look after themselves.
Collaboration for a Fair Future
No single person can tackle health equity alone. Governments, the private sector, healthcare providers, and community organizations need to work together. Public-private partnerships can be supported by health research conducted on underserved populations. Community-based involvement will ensure new tools that cater to actual needs of people they want to serve.
Global cooperation can also help. Technology and knowledge transfer between countries can enable developing countries to get access to quality and affordable medical devices. It is particularly important in the world where the healthcare system is weak.
Looking Ahead
MedTech can make things better for health by 2025. It cannot, on its own, eradicate health disparities. Based on the creation of a fair system, we must eradicate bias from medical devices, enhance access among under-served populations, and give all patients a chance to employ new innovation.
MedTech health equity is not technology, it’s justice, it’s fairness, it’s compassion. Let us all work together as policymakers, developers, and healthcare providers to make a world where everyone, irrespective of where they come from, has the care and the tools they need to thrive in good health.
