News Feature | January 31, 2017

ECRI Posts List Of Top 10 Emerging Healthcare Technologies For 2017

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Top 10

From liquid biopsies to robotic surgery and innovative diabetes vaccines, ECRI highlights disrupters.

ECRI Institute released its 2017 Top 10 Hospital C-suite Watch List of new and emerging healthcare technologies highlighting the important technology-related issues hospital and health system leaders need to pay close attention to. From liquid biopsies to stem cell treatment for Crohn's disease to an emotional robot to diabetes vaccines, the Top 10 list covers issues that impact patient safety, capital expenditures, and care delivery.

The annual list aims to take some of the what, when, why, and how out of deciding where to invest scarce hospital resources, as well as provides a “What to Do” section with actionable suggestions for assessing each technology and its potential impact for an organization.

In its 2017 list, ECRI Institute examines 10 topics poised to affect care delivery over the next 12 to 18 months:

  1. Liquid Biopsies: The New Wave of Genetic Testing?
  2. Opioid Addiction: Can Technology Predict Risks of Addiction and Relapse?
  3. The Belly of the Presurgery Beast: An Initiative to Improve Outcomes and Costs of Abdominal Surgery?
  4. Right-sizing Your Hospital: Is It Time to Refresh Your Purchasing and Implementation Processes?
  5. Seeing the Disinfecting Light: Will Compact Deep Ultraviolet-C LEDs Zap Disinfection Rates?
  6. Pepper, the Emotional Robot: Do You Have a Spot for Artificial Intelligence on Your 2017 Payroll?
  7. Robotic Surgery: Could a Pricey Patient-repositioning Table Improve Workflow and Outcomes?
  8. Adjusting the Endoscopy Picture: Is a New Imaging Technique a Better Way to Visualize Tissue Malignancies?
  9. Crohn’s Disease: Will Immunotherapy and Stem Cell Therapy Rescue Patients with Moderate-to-Severe Symptoms?
  10. Sticking It to Diabetes: Will Novel Vaccines Prevent or Cure Type I Diabetes in Children and Adults?

“Navigating new technologies is one of the biggest challenges we hear about from hospital leaders,” says Robert P. Maliff, director, Applied Solutions Group, ECRI Institute. “They simply can’t afford to miss the mark on which clinical advancements to bring in to improve patient care.”