The reach of technological innovation is growing steadily and today it has reached a height from where it is touching the life of roughly each person. The same industry that introduced Angry Birds and Facebook is now focusing its attention on ways to keep people healthier.
Here are a few ways by which technology is ushering in changes in the healthcare industry.
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Better Access
Health information technology is making it easier to access information. EMR or Electronic Medical Record system has proved extremely successful. It has made storage of clinical information easier and the doctors can access information easily with its aid. This is also helpful in bringing down the communication gap between several hospitals as well as between the doctors in the rural and the urban areas.
The researchers at IBM made a supercomputer with the name of Watson to help the physicians with making better diagnosis as well as recommend treatments. The doctors can rely upon Dr. Watson to keep a better track of the history of patients, remain updated and analyze the options of treatment.
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Portable Diagnostics
Today, the patients themselves have a vital role to play in their own healthcare and the option of portable diagnostics is helping them further.
Several sophisticated apps are making themselves a position in the healthcare industry. Ginger.io is capacitated to help the people with depression or anxiety problems track mood and share them with the clinicians.
The clinicians today can easily introduce hospital level diagnostics to home through the blood testing kits, portable x-ray machines as well as several other technologies.
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Improved Communication Facility
Technology is facilitating better communication between the doctor and the patient as well as between the doctors.
Remote care and telemedicine seem to be the future of healthcare.
The home healthcare services as well as innovative technologies are all set to better the communication between patients and doctors that were not possible before.
Today, it is possible to monitor the sleep pattern, breathing rate as well as heart rate remotely and the patient need not be connected to wires either. An FDA approved ‘mat’ that can be used both in hospital as well as home settings can do the job. The data collected will be transmitted online allowing the doctors and the caregivers monitor several patients at a given point of time.
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Better Fitness
A large number of mobile apps as well as gadgets are nowadays helping people to remain active, enjoy a better sleep as well as eat healthy. These health apps cater to the varied requirement of individuals. There are apps to help patients maintain the hydration level as well as update on the calorie count too.
Lark is an alarm clock as well as sleep monitor that analyzes as well as tracks an individual’s quality of sleep over a given period of time. It also offers suggestions to help people get more rest.
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More Information about Patients
A number of healthcare providers are examining if the wearable technologies fit into the long term treatment plan. The wearable technologies today go much beyond the basic step of measuring core health data like body temperature, quality of vision as well as blood pressure.
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Improved Treatment
We certainly can’t afford to forget the most obvious; the way technology changed the healthcare industry, offering new medicines, machine as well as treatments that are capacitated to save the life of millions and bettering the chances of recovery.
The sophisticated treatments not just go a long way in improving the chances of recovery. It has improved research significantly allowing the healthcare experts make treatments significantly more effective.
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Expansion of Medical Knowledge
Medicine is bound to benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. With transparent and large scale knowledge shared, the medical experts will find it easier to refine the regimen of treatment, innovate new approaches for treating age old problems as well as share feedback at an unexpected rate.
Technological developments are leaving a mark on all the industries and it is satisfying to note the way it is casting its impact in the healthcare industry. The above-discussed are only some of the ways by which the technological innovations are casting an impact on the healthcare industry and we wait to see a brighter tomorrow.
He is the head of Sales and Customer Relations. Bio, Has been in the DME (Durable Medical Equipment) and Long Term Care Sales industry for over 20 years. Brought his experience and expertise to Mobi Medical in 2014 as VP of Sales and Customer relations.