One of the most common questions we hear from young people at DxD is “what exactly is healthtech?” While there are some nuances, we broadly define health technology, or healthtech, as any medical device, including those that have a digital component. Examples of health technology range from dialysis machines to pacemakers and robotic surgery systems to wearable health trackers. We’ve listed a few more examples below, but according to the World Health Organization, there are more than 2 million different kinds of medical devices in the world, and that number is only growing. Estimates put the value of the health tech market at $964 billion by 2030.
Why diversity is essential
The companies that develop health tech innovations must include people from diverse perspectives and backgrounds to help ensure their products improve health rather than unintentionally exacerbating health inequities. A prime example of a useful health technology that inadvertently put patients in danger is the pulse oximeter. Invented in the 1970s to measure oxygen saturation in blood, the tools are commonly used in doctor’s offices and hospitals — especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the devices were designed and tested on people with light skin, and proved to be less accurate on patients with darker skin. During the pandemic, this meant that patients with darker skin tended to be much sicker before they received adequate medical care, because the health care staff were not getting an accurate reading of those patients’ blood oxygen levels.
One key factor for improving health equity is ensuring that the team working on healthtech innovations reflects a range of experiences, backgrounds and perspectives. Diversity in healthtech matters. Your voice and your perspective matter. And you don’t necessarily have to be an engineer or a physician to contribute to the growing field of health technology. Thriving healthtech teams require accountants, lawyers, manufacturers, marketers, salespeople, and much, much more.
Click the image below to download our intro to the exciting world of health technology.
Interested in learning more about careers in health technology? Click here to sign up for updates from DxD Healthtech.