As long ago as 1932 Aldous Huxley was imagining a world transformed by technology in his novel Brave New World. That novel presented a rather bleak dystopian view of the future where humankind were slaves to technology.

Given the addiction of many to their smartphone social networking apps, some people might say we're on our way to Aldous' bleak view of the future.

However, what the current pandemic has taught us is that technology can be an enabler and help keep us connected even when we can't be physically connected. It has helped us to continue to work and forced us to look at the future differently.

The King's Fund paper referenced below is a very good exploration of how technology may become an enabler in healthcare and offer a brighter view of the future as opposed to Aldous' rather bleak version.

What is important to also note is that there is a disparity between groups as to how useful technology is. Social care is a prime example of this. The elderly are the core user group and often the least able to leverage the benefits that technology can bring. We must therefore not herald a new dawn of tech-driven healthcare just yet. There are major advantages to using more tech-driven solutions but we can't take the human out of the process and we must make sure the playing field for the end-user is a level one.