Medical Devices

Healthcare Sensor Innovations 2020, hosted in San Jose on March 17-18, identifies and assesses the opportunities for printed and flexible electronics in healthcare as the technology enables a new wave of medical wearable devices.

Healthcare Sensor Innovations North America debut on Marc, 17-18, 2020 in San Jose, USA will focus on the latest developments in the use of wearables and sensors in point of care diagnostics and continuous monitoring.

Attendees at Healthcare Sensor Innovations USA 2020 will hear from industry representatives on how the next wave of connected and wearable medical devices will bring increased benefits to patients, healthcare providers, insurers, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) must be better managed for patient care to improve. The protocols for monitoring patients are rapidly evolving. Historically, patients who fall ill are required to travel in order to visit a general practitioner or hospital. This procedure may soon become a thing of the past.

There is dramatic change in some industries, with leading printed electronics vendors moving quickly to capitalize on the new sought after capabilities. These opportunities will be addressed at the Printed Electronics Europe exhibition and conference in Berlin on 13 - 14 May (register by 23 January to save 40%).

Diagnosing CVD is the first step in patients' road to recovery. It is imperative to detect the disease early in order to administer treatment while it is still treatable. In addition, preventing the disease altogether is becoming more important in healthcare. The main approaches for detecting CVD are currently in vitro diagnostics (IVD) at point-of-care (POC) and the use artificial intelligence (AI) in cardiovascular imaging.

As developers' understanding of this disease grows, so will the range of devices at their disposal to address it. They have only scratched the surface of how technology can improve CVD patients' lives and, as they dig deeper, they will continue to unlock the potential of this growing market.

The ear has long been touted as an excellent place for technology to exist on the body. Over 5 years of gradually gaining momentum, the topic of "hearables" is finally being recognized more widely for the excellent opportunity which it presents.

Wearable technology devices seek to provide value in the augmentation of the wearer by design and function. From this perspective, electronic skin patches are a particularly interesting device type, anchoring the device to the skin in order for it to achieve a specific function.

This is the second of a two part series exploring wearable medical devices. In part 1, IDTechEx discussed trends indicating that "the future of wearable is medical". In part 2, we explore the question in reverse, asking to what extent "the future of wearables is medical."