Digital health products played a prominent role in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and in helping caregivers and patients navigate their care in the past year. Going into 2022, remote monitoring, wearables, sensors, and other mobile health (mHealth) products are taking center stage in defining the future of medicine. "One of the clearest areas of excitement now and into the future is the sector of healthcare products referred to as wearables. These are devices like fitness trackers, heart monitors, and other devices that record in real time and communicate biometric data either directly to the user or to a connected platform for a variety of purposes, including coaching, intervention, analysis and even within clinical trials administration," notes a recent report from contract manufacturer Jabil, St. Petersburg, FL. The report, "Digital Health Technology Trends," finds that "the top three solution categories providers are developing or plan to develop are in patient monitoring, diagnostic equipment, and on-body or wearable devices (see Figure 1). As digital and mHealth capabilities have become an integral part of many medical devices and diagnostics, they have enabled a more agile and flexible healthcare system to emerge in the face of COVID-19. These products will continue to improve access to patient care. Digital transformation of healthcare is not just about adopting new digital technology, notes a recent position paper from medtech giant Philips. It's about reimagining healthcare for the digital age -- using the power of data, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud-based platforms, and new business models to improve health outcomes, lower the cost of care, and improve the human care experience for patients and staff alike."

The National Health Service reported that over 70 million prescriptions for antidepressants alone were prescribed in England last year. According to a Scientific American study from 2016, more than one in six US adults takes a psychiatric drug. However, most mental disorders are treated based on symptoms instead of the patient's underlying biology. BlackThorn Therapeutics wants to change that. The AI-based neurobehavioural health startup is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to personalise psychiatric medication.

As a part of my series about "Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years" I had the pleasure of interviewing Dor Skuler. A serial entrepreneur, Dor has co-founded five ventures, the most recent being Intuition Robotics, following his passion to develop artificial intelligence-driven robotics that address major social issues of the 21st century. Having trained in Israel's elite military intelligence unit 8200, Dor made a mark on interactive broadcast technology with Zing Interactive Media (acquired by Invesco, NASDAQ: IVZ) and security software through Safend (acquired by Wave Systems Corp, NASDAQ: WAVX). Dor then joined Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) to create and lead innovative ventures, most notably as Founder and GM of Cloudband, the world's first platform for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), cited by Nokia as a major motive to purchasing the French-American telecoms giant. As Senior Vice President at Alcatel-Lucent, Dor was a regular speaker on the telecoms circuit, frequently cited in the media and made the Global Telecom Business '40 under 40' list in 2009, 2011 and 2013.

A Boom with a View is a column about startups and the technology industry, written by Erin Griffith. Find them all here: fortune.com/boom. There's an easy way to tell when the hype around a technology trend has peaked. Ask yourself the following: Are the smartest venture capitalists complaining about valuations? Are big tech companies snapping up startups so young they can barely be considered real businesses?