5 Healthcare Tech Trends to Watch in 2020

From real-time diagnoses aided by machine learning to wearable devices that track and transmit patient data from a distance, a host of new and evolving technologies are poised to influence care delivery in 2020. As intuitive tools intended to maintain good health, not to react to an existing illness, these investments are designed to reduce hospitalizations and related costs. "We're seeing a shift away from using technology to advance specialty care and high-tech medicine and a shift toward using technology to enable prevention and primary care," Dr. Felix Matthews, a managing director and physician leader at Deloitte, tells HealthTech. The continuing challenge for hospitals, he adds, is finding the right tools and level of investment to tackle risks and reach enough patients to justify the effort. Once the domain of early adopters, wearables are poised to help healthcare professionals collect a wealth of data from a widening and more diverse pool of users.