Future of medicine: Trending careers in health and technology

The relationship between technology and healthcare is changing the way medicine is practised in India. Healthcare is changing dramatically, providing various career prospects for the students and specialists interested in medicine, technology and management. As the healthcare systems are emerging, new positions between clinical practice, investigations, management of data, and technology appear providing numerous alternatives to the typical medical careers.

Health informatics specialist

Medical information assessment, and management, which involve science and the art of doing it in association with health information and the digital tools, could be defined as health informatics. Health informatics specialists collaborate with EHRs, patient information warehouses, and analysis systems to maximise effectiveness of care. Health informatics specialists are needed in hospitals, insurance companies, and the health-tech startups to help integrate services and make sense of healthcare data.

What you need: 

Health Informatics, Computer Science, or Public Health Degree. However, if a degree is in the latter two areas, it is useful to have a good understanding of medical terms and data systems.

Biomedical Engineer

Biomedical engineering is focused on the design and production of medical equipment and maintenance of medical devices and biomedical engineers of India are very much in demand considering the increasing demand for low-cost locally produced medical devices as well as the innovation of prosthetics, diagnostic devices and the complementary devices which will detect human digital health.

What you need: 

Tech or M. Tech in biomedical engineering/its cognate field with some exposure to biology and some exposure to engineering.

Clinical Data Analyst

Digitalisation of healthcare has generated huge data in health. Clinical data analysts assist organisations in the processing of data in order to facilitate the treatment of patients and the efficiency of workflow so that it leads to better patient experience. They analyse trends, evaluate performance of treatment and encourage clinical trials.

What you need: 

Graduate degree in statistics, data science, or life sciences and experience with using analytical software like SAS, R, or Python.

Digital health entrepreneurship

The area of fitness applications, mental health platforms, or remote monitoring is a rather promising field where many professionals are at the cutting edge of their careers and start entrepreneurial paths by opening up startups. The government policies such as the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) are working towards creating a digital health innovation friendly ecosystem in India.

What you need: 

There is nothing to particular background some entrepreneurs need to have, we observe people with medicine, engineering, or business backgrounds turning intensively to ideation and interdisciplinary collaboration.

AI and Machine learning specialist/ healthcare 

Machine-learning is altering the way people are viewing disease prediction, diagnosis and even drug discovery. AI and machine learning mavens are addressing this niche to develop algorithms to read X-rays, slides by the pathologists or predict risk in healthy people.

What you need: 

A computer science, AI/ML, or engineering degree often falls into the picture with the knowledge of biomedical data or clinical practice.