The Health x Digital Transformation Report 2024-2025 from the National Industry Innovation Network (NIIN) Health Alliance, led by the RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab, pulls from almost 10,000 journal articles and trends reports, including from Forbes, MIT, CSIRO and Google.

The report identifies the five most significant technological trends and the potential for each to redefine health systems. It also describes proven applications in health and offers a clear roadmap for actionable change in the next 12 months.

Artificial intelligence (AI) was the most talked about trend in 2024, and one that could impact every part of health.

However, the report identifies five areas of health technology innovation which can have a near-future impact on healthcare globally:

1. Augmented Intelligences: the deployment of AI and machine learning to make healthcare genuinely smart.
2. Simulation and simulacra: using digital replicas and simulation technologies – such as virtual reality, augmented reality, digital twins and 3D printing – to hack the real world.
3. Remote patient care: leveraging digital means to provide care that meets the patient where they need it.
4. Health system adaptability and dynamism: technologies that foster system resilience and adaptability in times of rapid change.
5. Harnessing biotechnology breakthroughs: building the future of healthcare through truly exciting science and technology development.

Other advances, such as quantum computing and blockchain, were excluded from the report as, despite their great promise for addressing complex health problems, applications of these technologies are still experimental and cannot be readily actioned in healthcare settings over 2024-2025.

Executive Chair of the RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab, Professor Vishaal Kishore, explained that the team will be working directly with people and organisations in health, technology, research and policy to drive action off the back of this report.

“Health has always been a creature of technological change. Tectonic shifts in technology have always made new modes and models of care possible. What has changed has been the pace of technology change, and the pressures on the health sector to keep up.

“There are good reasons why change at times must be cautious, but we’ve seen during the pandemic that change can – and at times, must – be sped up,” said Kishore.

Director of the RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab, Nithya Solomon, explained that with new technologies hitting the market on a daily basis, the health sector can be left uncertain on what technologies could make the most impact and how to take the next step.