This November, N-iX attended MEDICA 2024 in Düsseldorf, the world’s prominent trade fair for medical technology and healthcare. Our experts were keen to explore the industry's pulse, uncovering both the challenges and opportunities for innovation and growth in the sector.
After engaging in numerous conversations and observing the event, we’ve compiled some key takeaways into this summary. Here’s our take on the highlights from MEDICA 2024.
Event Overview
MEDICA brought together over 5,300 exhibitors from 70 countries and more than 83,000 visitors. It was a prime platform for connecting healthcare leaders, technology providers, and innovators.
N-iX was represented by the expert team of Volodymyr Onyskevych, Vira Byy, Anastasiia Vedernikova, and Ihor Kozakevych, ready to share how our technology solutions are driving tangible results in the sector.
Major Challenges and Trends
1. Extended Product Development and Certification Cycles
The product development and certification cycles in healthcare are lengthy, creating a gap as technology advances faster than the process itself. This delay makes it challenging for companies to adopt emerging technologies and implement timely upgrades.
Focus area: The key to overcoming this challenge lies in working with technology partners—expert teams that enhance companies' development capabilities. By accelerating product updates, these partnerships ensure that products stay competitive and technologically relevant.
2. Achieving Operational Efficiency
Like other industries, healthcare has its operational challenges. This includes managing customer relationships, tracking inventory, handling logistics, and overseeing sales and marketing—all essential for effective business management.
Focus area: Streamlining complex internal processes in inventory management, logistics, and marketing optimization:
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ERP and CRM systems enhance day-to-day operations and improve the overall customer experience by providing access to data, optimizing workflows, and improving decision-making.
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Systems integrations ensure that internal processes work together smoothly, driving both efficiency and customer satisfaction.
3. User-Centric Digital Solutions and Telehealth
Several studies reveal an increasing trend among patients, especially younger generations, to switch providers when dissatisfied with their experience. They prioritize customer service, convenience, and trust over price. This drives demand for intuitive digital tools, including telemedicine services like video consultations, and seamless remote care options.
Moreover, healthcare organizations must establish a strong digital presence with platforms such as online catalogs and portals to engage clients and ensure easy access to information.
Focus area: Designing user-centric digital healthcare platforms that optimize healthcare delivery, promote efficient communication, and enhance patient experience:
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User-centric design is essential for creating empathetic, accessible, and efficient healthcare platforms tailored to diverse audiences—from medical professionals to patients of all ages.
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Emerging solutions like Conversational AI further enhance customer engagement and enable personalized support, optimizing healthcare delivery and communication.
4. Big Data
According to the IDC, Big Data is expected to grow faster in healthcare than in other industries like manufacturing, financial services, or media.
Knowledge from Big Data analysis gives healthcare specialists insights not available before. It can be applied at every step of the healthcare cycle, from medical research to patient experience and outcome. The main thing is to know how to work with this.
Focus areas:
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Solutions like data lakes enable the storage of diverse healthcare data, including images, documents, and exports from legacy systems. Data warehouses facilitate efficient access, analysis, and utilization of data.
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Data quality is crucial. Healthcare organizations should work on data governance and master data management solutions to improve this.
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Implement data visualization tools such as real-time monitoring, operational dashboards, and periodic business/report dashboards.
5. Security
Security is a top concern in healthcare, a highly regulated industry with strict laws governing the storage and sharing of sensitive data. However, breaches and leaks of confidential information remain prevalent.
Focus area: Implementing proper configurations, conducting regular audits, performing risk assessments, and training employees on security best practices are essential.
6. Artificial Intelligence
The integration of AI, ML, and Big Data holds the potential to revolutionize precision medicine, making healthcare more personalized, effective, and accessible. Use cases are different:
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Enhancing imaging with more accurate interpretations of MRI scans and X-rays
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Optimizing diagnoses and treatments
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Supporting AI-assisted surgeries with precise navigation and real-time insights
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Accelerating drug development
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Streamlining administrative processes
Focus area: As AI and Big Data continue to advance, human oversight and robust regulatory frameworks are essential to ensure their safe and effective integration into healthcare practices.
We’ve recently explored the use cases of Generative AI and Conversational AI in healthcare in our articles. Continue reading to learn more.
How N-iX Can Help
At N-iX, we empower healthcare companies to overcome industry challenges through technology. Our expertise covers healthcare data analytics, IoT and embedded medical device software, patient engagement platforms, AI integrations, cloud solutions, and more.
We offer comprehensive support in healthcare software development, integration services, and legacy systems modernization. Let us show you how our expertise can address your needs.
