New diagnostics, new treatments: These 21 projects are ushering in the future of healthcare

With the host of challenges facing the healthcare industry—particularly in the U.S.—it can be easy to forget that serious progress is being made in everything from diagnostics and drug discovery to health monitoring and facilities design. The World Changing Ideas honorees below have focused their impact on bringing forth a future of healthcare that is more accurate, equitable, and climate-conscious. That includes Atmo Biosciences’ ingestible capsule that can help identify GI issues; an AI-fueled tool for drug discovery that outperform’s Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold; and several honorable mentions innovating around health platforms, neurological episode tracking, and more. Winners AI-powered outpatient surgery, Oath SurgicalRead more about Oath Surgical’s AI-powered effort to improve the outpatient surgery experience for patients and surgeons. Atmo gas capsule system, Atmo BiosciencesTraditional methods of diagnosing functional gastrointestinal issues can be invasive or require patients to be stationary for long periods of time. Atmo Biosciences’ ingestible capsule is designed to make diagnosing these GI disorders more straightforward. The sensor-filled capsule is taken orally and passes through the GI tract, collecting data during its transit time using measurements of temperature, hydrogen concentration, and other metrics that inform the company’s proprietary comprehensive test of gut motility. The product achieved FDA 510(k) clearance in June 2025 and launched the next month. Since launch, more than a dozen clinics have begun using the Atmo capsule to diagnose patients, and research institutions have adopted it to help study drug absorption, microbiome interactions, and more. Augmented reality for trauma care, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics LaboratoryA traumatic injury can be difficult enough to treat in a well-equipped hospital setting, but in a remote or resource-limited one the challenges multiply and impact survival rate. To h