Happy New Year, and welcome to the first Imaging Wire of 2023. For those of you getting started on your annual gameplans, here are some potential imaging trends that you might want to consider.
Provider Strain – Many providers limped into 2023 with shaky finances, workforce shortages, and burnout problems, and now they have to navigate an economic downturn. That means they might only be open to “must have” initiatives/technologies that address that list of challenges.
Startup Strain – A market full of strained healthcare providers is generally bad news for medtech startups, especially considering that many of those startups are still in search of their next funding round (from a smaller / more selective group of VCs) or are trying to make their previous rounds last longer than they initially planned.
Paying Down Imaging IT Debt – Southwest’s holiday shutdown prompted many radiology leaders to reevaluate which of their long-delayed tech updates should be now viewed as “must haves” in 2023. These leaders will have a lot to choose from, given how many imaging IT infrastructures are patched together and how many tech initiatives were delayed by COVID.
The Year of AI (again) – There’s a lot of activity in imaging AI and perhaps even more attention, qualifying the AI segment for a wide range of 2023 predictions:
- AI tools will continue to become more comprehensive
- Pharma companies will play a growing role in AI funding and strategies
- AI research will shift towards evaluating commercial tools
- New chatGPT-inspired reporting/communications use cases will emerge
- The AI consolidation wave will peak
- AI adoption will expand among mid-sized hospitals and practices
- Administrative/operational AI solutions will have another big year
- The list of reimbursable AI solutions will continue to expand
Diversified Diagnostics – 2022 brought more imaging informatics players into digital pathology, welcomed ambitious new theranostics efforts, and saw a surge of intriguing multi-omics/olgy studies. Those trends should intensify in 2023, as traditionally separate diagnostic areas slowly converge with imaging technologies and teams.
Non-Imaging Biomarkers – Speaking of which, 2023 will bring more progress towards the development and adoption of imaging-related (or imaging-alternative) biomarker tests, including three brand new biomarker techniques that we covered below in today’s newsletter.
More Home Imaging – Medical imaging will continue its shift beyond hospital walls, as home and outpatient care boom, and mobile and DIY imaging technologies evolve.
