NTT Research’s innovation can enable a new care delivery paradigm

NTT Research, the Silicon Valley-based basic research arm of NTT, focuses on physics and informatics, cryptography, and medical and health informatics. At its Upgrade 2024 event in San Francisco, a variety of healthcare innovations were on display, including Cardiovascular Bio Digital Twin (CV BioDT), an in vitro Heart-on-a-Chip digital twin platform, and Project Humanity for ALS, an effort to enable amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients to communicate with their pre-disease recorded voice. However, the most interesting opportunity is the potential applications of ambient technology devices that can enable a need-based intervention paradigm.

Need-based intervention can displace a demand-based intervention paradigm—and deliver better results

The predominant care paradigm is demand-based intervention, where people decide when to seek care based on how they feel. Current technologies are creating the opportunity to perform a need-based intervention (see Exhibit 1). NTT Research is exploring the use of ambient technology in the context of seniors at the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease that can measure motion, humidity, carbon dioxide (CO₂), sound, light, and temperature. These deliver insights into patient activities such as showering, restroom use, and movement, enabling proactive clinician intervention to manage disease conditions.

Exhibit 1: Leveraging a suite of consumer health technologies helps clinicians intervene only when required

Source: HFS Research, 2024

Ambient technologies can be part of a technology suite that includes mobility, medical IOT (internet of things), wearables, and biometrics (see Exhibit 1) that can create the health profile of a consumer and continuously monitor against that profile. This suite of digital health technologies can trigger interventions only when parameters such as temperature, hemoglobin, blood pressure, lack of movement, etc., cross a personalized threshold. Further, the intervention can be through clinicians and non-clinicians based on the type of triage or other needs. Such a setup is possible today and can impact the cost of care, improve health outcomes, and make it easier for providers and consumers to enhance patients’ experiences.

Robotics, edgeAI, and faster computing can significantly enhance the efficacy of digital health

Robotics, such as NTT’s Jibo, can add companionship with the possibility of human sentiment analysis using EdgeAI (artificial intelligence in an edge computing environment) and faster computing (photonics), an area NTT Research is exploring. The speed of computation and transfer of information will be critical to realizing the potential value of medical technologies that can enable faster diagnosis and intervention.

The possibilities of NTT Research’s work in physics and informatics, cryptography, and medical and health informatics will have far-reaching impacts. Its consistent investment in basic research and leveraging its innovation through its services and technology channels make the possibilities real.

The Bottom Line: Leverage existing technology to change how care is delivered.

While many medical and health technologies are available, the ability to stitch them into a suite, as visualized in Exhibit 1, is an opportunity whose time has come. Consumers and clinicians will be willing participants if providers can figure out the commercial construct and craft the right types of ecosystems.