## 8 Future Directions and Innovations
Recent innovations include epidermal sensors for glucose and lactate detection, smart textiles with embedded biosensing threads and skin-interfaced microfluidic patches capable of multiplexed biomarker tracking [91, 92]. Furthermore, AI-enhanced analytics and edge computing are now being integrated to support personalized health diagnostics and predictive alerts, particularly for chronic disease management and remote patient monitoring [93]. Despite challenges in calibration, biofouling and power supply, wearable biosensors represent a transformative approach toward decentralized, continuous healthcare delivery. Policy development must keep pace with these technological advances. Clear guidelines are needed to govern data ownership, secondary data usage, AI decision-making transparency and equitable access to emerging digital health tools. Interdisciplinary collaboration among technologists, ethicists, policymakers and occupational health experts will be essential to realizing the full potential of these innovations. Point-of-care testing in regard to the detection of biomarkers in blood or breath samples is already well established. However, the sensitivity is insufficient for the detection of cancer or chronic diseases at an early stage. Current commercial breath test devices cannot detect biomarker levels below the nanomolar concentration range and are, therefore, insufficient to analyze the breath samples of healthy individuals. For blood assays, current POC approaches either rely on expensive equipment or disposable sensors and consume reagents, thereby compromising the sustainability of the testing approaches. For non-invasive breath tests, methods with a broad potential application space in smart and cheap sensors based on polymers, carbon nanomaterials and metallics are proposed. These  
Figure 6: Simplified representation of blockchain integration with POC health monitoring in the workplace. Blockchain ensures that once a POCT result is entered, it cannot be modified without network consensus. This builds trust between employees, employers and health providers by securing sensitive health data against hacking, falsification or unauthorized access. technologies are close to being ready for market implementation as they have already undergone clinical testing or have been used in pilot studies [94; 95; 96]. Furthermore, functionalized materials with novel properties in the THz frequency range can be employed to design wearable technologies for sweat analysis. Implanted devices can sense biomarkers in tissue and fluids and respond to the local environment to release drugs, e.g., anti-cancer drugs. POC detection devices for cancer biomarkers in blood samples based on single neuronal behavior or echolocated waves in nanoplasmonic platforms can be fabricated. These applications and approaches provide a path forward to establishing a healthier and less stressful environment in the modern workplace [97; 98; 99; 100]. In conjunction with advancements in testing technologies, future/ongoing research efforts related to chronic disease and cancer testing in the workplace should also focus on addressing factors related to broader workplace testing practices (beyond the test itself). For instance, addressing factors such as company policies and laws affecting workplace testing, as well as employee perceptions and opinions regarding workplace testing, is also paramount for successful implementation. While some company policies (such as access to point-of-care test results) and laws affecting the use of point-of-care tests (such as the FDA approval path for point-of-care tests) may hinder the use of workplace testing, there are current and ongoing research opportunities to influence the development of beneficial policies and laws [101; 102; 103]. Recent decades have seen the clustering of POC tests based on respiratory, cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes and urinalysis prospects.