Trends Identified

Health
The past century has delivered remarkable advances in health, as is illustrated by the increase of 4.7 years (male) and 5.1 years (female) to the average global life expectancy at birth between 1990 and 2010. However, translating public health knowledge into practice has been fragmented and fraught with difficulty. Whilst biomedical technology and capacity to enhance the quality of health care and prevention have improved significantly, access to health care remains vastly lopsided, with the poor and disadvantaged suffering a disproportionate burden of illness and disease.
2013
Now for the long term - The Report of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations
Oxford Martin School
Health care providers will cover your groceries.
A lot more than what happens in a doctor’s office affects health outcomes. “If you're sitting at home with no job, it's going to impact your health, whether that's the mental stress, whether that starts to create high blood pressure, early signs of hypertension,” explains Kaiser Permanente chairman and CEO Bernard Tyson. Same if you can’t afford balanced meals or if violence in your community stops you going out and exercising. That’s pushing health care companies to step out of their lane and start new programs. Geisinger, a health care system covering the poorest counties in Pennsylvania, started a “fresh food pharmacy”, providing patients with groceries, nutrition information and cooking classes, says its president and CEO, Dr. Jaewon Ryu. “Whether commercial insurers start paying for those programs or not, I think it depends on how innovative and receptive they are to the growing body of evidence,” he adds.
2018
50 Big Ideas for 2019: What to watch in the year ahead
LinkedIn
Health innovations will shape health outcomes
Innovations in the health field will bring together the technological process of inventing new drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tools, with profound impact on the health systems of developing countries.
2011
Africa in 50 Years’ Time
African Development Bank
Health monitoring will move beyond the clinical setting, closer to you
Health sensors will appear more frequently in everyday items such as mobile phones or toilets, wearables (e.g., clothing, jewelry – even skin); in a multifunctional “tricorder” (hand-held diagnostic device); or as part of a “lab-on-a-chip” that people may soon keep in their medicine cabinets. The process
for self-monitoring of health indicators, as well as monitoring of healthy or unhealthy behaviours, will be simpler and more routine. When diagnostic data is networked, AI-augmented and relayed to clinicians, round-the-clock remote care becomes possible. As brain-computer interface (BCI) tools bring greater awareness of mental states, the brain-body connection underlying addictions, illness and treatment will present new options (e.g., neurostimulation, neuro-enhancing drugs, or simply behaviour change).
2013
Metascan 3 emerging technologies
Canada, Policy Horizons Canada
Health reimagined
With growing health needs, is digital the best medicine? There is much to gain from disrupting health care. Aging (see Engaged aging) populations and increasingly sedentary lifestyles have put costs on an unsustainable trajectory. Advances that improve health outcomes and care delivery will generate tremendous benefits, not just for patients, but also for governments and businesses. This is the promise of health reimagined* — the move to an entirely different health paradigm that is predictive, personalized, proactive and participatory. The ubiquity of data and analytics means every company is now a tech company. In the future, companies from every sector will develop products, and increasingly, algorithms to improve individuals’ health. Mobile and other empowering technologies are helping drive this shift, transforming patients into super consumers who demand greater control of their health through new products and services.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Health reimagined
Health care — which already accounts for 10% of global GDP — is embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime transformation. Health systems and players are under increasing cost pressure — driving them to seek more sustainable approaches, including incentives that emphasize value. These cost pressures are exacerbated by changing demographics, rising incomes in rapid-growth markets and an imminent chronic-disease epidemic. An explosion in big data and mobile health technologies is enabling real-time information creation and analysis. Companies beyond health care as traditionally defined are entering the fray, providing new sources of competition and partnering. These trends are starting to drive a fundamentally different approach — moving beyond the delivery of health care (by traditional health care companies in traditional ways, i.e., “sick care”) to the management of health (by diverse sets of players, with more focus on healthy behaviors, prevention and real-time care). Success, in other words, demands that we reimagine our approach to health.
2015
Megatrends 2015 -Making sense of a world in motion
EY
Health, inequality and well-being
The treatment of infectious diseases that affect the developing world disproportionately will be further compromised by growing antibacterial resistance. Non-communicable and neurological diseases are projected to increase sharply in line with demographic ageing and globalisation of unhealthy lifestyles. Inequalities will grow in many developed countries, as will poverty rates and the profiles of those at risk of poverty.
2016
OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2016
OECD
Health: 'We'll feel less healthy'
Health systems are generally quite conservative. That's why the more radical forecasts of the recent past haven't quite materialised. Contrary to past predictions, we don't carry smart cards packed with health data; most treatments aren't genetically tailored; and health tourism to Bangalore remains low. But for all that, health is set to undergo a slow but steady revolution. Life expectancy is rising about three months each year, but we'll feel less healthy, partly because we'll be more aware of the many things that are, or could be, going wrong, and partly because more of us will be living with a long-term condition. We'll spend more on health but also want stronger action to influence health. The US Congressional Budget Office forecasts that US health spending will rise from 17% of the economy today to 25% in 2025 and 49% in 2082. Their forecasts may be designed to shock but they contain an important grain of truth. Spending on health and jobs in health is bound to grow.Some of that spending will go on the problems of prosperity – obesity, alcohol consumption and injuries from extreme sports. Currently fashionable ideas of "nudge" will have turned out to be far too weak to change behaviours. Instead, we'll be more in the realms of "shove" and "push", with cities trying to reshape whole environments to encourage people to walk and cycle. By 2030, mental health may at last be treated on a par with physical health. Medicine may have found smart drugs for some conditions but the biggest impact may be achieved from lower-tech actions, such as meditation in schools or brain gyms for pensioners. Healthcare will look more like education. Your GP will prescribe you a short course on managing your diabetes or heart condition, and when you get home there'll be an e-tutor to help you and a vast array of information about your condition. Almost every serious observer of health systems believes that the great general hospitals are already anachronistic, but because hospitals are where so much of the power lies, and so much of the public attachment, it would be a brave forecaster who suggested their imminent demise.
2011
20 predictions for the next 25 years
The Guardian
Healthcare Delivery Optimization
In 2018, “I think concerns about disruptive change [related to healthcare] coming from Washington are going to be totally diminished, so people are going to be calmer in the delivery system.” Kocher says. “Health care providers will turn their attention to increasing profitability instead of bracing for large structural changes. And rather than raising prices, they’ll focus on efficiency. Kocher says his firm will continue looking for digital health companies with novel ways to reduce costs and improve outcomes. “We continue to look at things that take economic responsibility for the cost and outcomes of care, and use technology and data to make both of those better and more efficient.”
2018
The Most Important Tech Trends Of 2018, According To Top VCs
Fast Company
Heat-resistant nanostructured composite, ceramic and metallic materials
Heat-resistant nanostructured composite, ceramic and metallic materials have considerable potential for application in numerous fields (in particular the aeronautical industry and electrical energy sector) thanks to their resistance to chemical decomposition at high temperatures. Among this line of innovative products, the following are notable:
carbon-carbon construction materials with maximum operating temperatures of up to 1650°C;
light high-strength laminated composite metal-intermetallic materials suitable for use in high temperatures and at critical temperature gradients;
heat-resistant composite coatings hardened with nano-scale silicides making it possible to increase the temperature and operating life of products, as well as their reliability by 1.5 times;
carbon fibre composites with metallic matrices to produce heat-resistant construction items with a certain nanostructure.
Nanostructured composite materials with special properties (including conductiveness, magnetism and optical properties), intended to transfer and transform electrical currents, make up a large group of innovative products. The main applications for this type of materials are being developed to transfer high power currents and to miniaturise devices.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation