Applications of e-Health

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) continues with the creation of next-generation networks, and the addition of the Internet to digital networks. At the beginning of 2019, the number of mobile network subscribers exceeded five billion, and more than half of humanity (57%) had access to Internet applications.

By penetrating the field of medicine, ICT is helping to enrich knowledge. Thanks to close collaboration between research centers and industry, innovation is multiplying e-health offerings for care centers or individual needs. Telemedicine offerings are diversifying, and a debate is underway on the legal role to be assigned to it, while the dissemination of knowledge is tending to take the form of various forms of "e-health".

Recent developments in e-medicine involve a host of innovations marketed to the general public or to healthcare centers. New avenues of research are opening up thanks to the availability of biosensors, biorobots, 3D printing techniques and computer-assisted surgery. Mobile well-being is being organized with gadgets designed to control physical exercise or help the disabled. Today's offerings show that tomorrow's medical consultation could evolve and perhaps be organized more favorably with the help of ICT. Virtual reality is now available to nursing staff and the mobility-impaired. The first steps in biophotonics open up immense prospects. The multiplication of uses is driving down costs everywhere.

In the light of our initial experiments, it is certain that the development of ICTs in the healthcare sector will lead to new relationships between healthcare professionals and their patients, and probably to a greater awareness on the part of patients of their own health.

This article describes the main healthcare applications that have emerged from research and development work in electronics, telecommunications and the Internet. The segmentation proposed in this presentation may only be provisional, given the rapid emergence of innovations everywhere, in Asia as in the West.