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The health and wellness industry has recently gone mainstream as people now promote meditation as a productivity hack. Most of the big hotel chains have all launched wellness tourism brands as the demand is growing.
People are spending more money on their health and experiences than in the more traditional areas such as fashion and luxury brands. This article will look at the state of the industry, why technology is relevant to this space, and how it implements it.
The health and wellness industry is valued at over $4.75 trillion, with a growth rate of 6.4% which is expected to continue at this pace. It covers businesses that focus on the health and wellness of their customers, this includes spas and corporate wellness.
The industry is now guided by several trends. Digital wellness is the first one, it focuses on making sure that people learn to adapt to spending more time at home and living with the digital world which can become addicting.
Meditation is no longer restricted to yoga classes and people recognize its health benefits, this boosts its popularity and the subject is now an important selling topic for companies in the health business.
Wellness tourism is projected to reach $920 billion in 2022 and underlines the desires of customers that wish to take care of their minds and body by going to resorts and various different wellbeing centers.
The industry also uses protein powders and bars from the food industry to enlarge its business. They now try to target women and vegan exercisers instead of the traditional body-building market.
The sector is growing and won’t stop anytime soon, as the global interest for wellness keeps increasing, people are more aware of their bodies and their needs. In that regard, technology can provide valuable benefits to further improve this industry.
Let’s now look at the reasons why technology helps the health and wellness industry stay relevant.
Thanks to technological innovations, businesses can develop healthier alternatives for their products and advertise them on the market. Statistics about a user’s body, fitness level, and cardio can help the user stay in shape and achieve a certain goal.
This type of technology helps customers stay on track with their resolutions as they receive feedback on their routine. This helps encourage people to exercise and keep up a healthy lifestyle. The industry relies on such technology to embark new customers on their latest products.
This also helps customers stick with a brand as they might enjoy the results they’re getting, they might also enter an ecosystem of tools and applications that help them along their wellbeing journey.
Thanks to technology, information, medical terms, and knowledge are far more accessible and no longer limited to physicians. With a quick internet search, a patient can get detailed information about their condition and all the related information about what they should do to stay healthy.
This does have a few drawbacks, for example, some people think they don’t need a consultation because they can self-diagnose, and believe they know everything about their condition. This can prevent them from seeing the bigger picture and making the right choice, the choice of an expert medical veteran.
This has changed the role of the patient which is no longer has a passive role, the physician must now view the patient as a vital piece of the decision-making process.
While this is relatively old news, the digitalization of electronic health records has led the health sector to function much more efficiently as information can be spread at much faster speeds and more easily.
These records have become indispensable to the industry. Large ransomware attacks on hospitals make the various health records inaccessible, and prove over and over the importance of such records that the industry has come to rely on.
We’ve determined the importance of technology in the health and wellness industry, let’s look at the technology put in place to carry the industry through its development.
One important sector of development for the industry is the ability for people to contact a health worker remotely. In the context of a sanitary crisis like COVID 19, these remote communication tools offer a way for patients to get relevant information on their condition and the steps to take without risking potential contamination.
This also helps the industry reach remote places where people might lack health specialists. The technology relies on video chats and automated responses that guide patients to the corresponding specialist which then gives guidelines via a video call if needed.
As electronics have gotten smaller and smaller in recent years, the surgical field has taken advantage of that to develop microscopic cameras for their surgeries. This allows them to create minuscule openings to fit their tools and operate very precisely with a live view of the patient.
This technology relies on small cameras that are fit onto a stick and inserted in the body so the surgeon can access a live video which he entirely relies upon to do his surgery.
The goal of such methods is to be as little invasive as possible, this ensures the patient isn’t left with scars or minimal ones, and that the healing process is quick and easy.
As the health and wellness industry grows, it has found ways of using technology to create better treatments and provide healthier products to customers. The industry heavily relies on technology to store its medical records and is exploring new ways of reaching patients, online.
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