5 Ways Technology Is Changing Healthcare and Patient Relationships

Saturday, October 1, 2016

 5 Ways Technology Is Changing Healthcare and Patient Relationships


Medicine

Technological advancement in the healthcare field continues to advance and expand our capabilities, and extend our lives. Here are a few examples of how healthcare professionals are using new advances to interact with and manage patients.


For decades, the fields of healthcare and medicine have undergone dramatic advancements, resulting in better quality patient care and increased human lifespan. With modern technology at the backdrop of their day-to-day operations, these respective fields are poised to expand even further. Here's five ways technology is revolutionizing healthcare, particularly how healthcare professionals interact with and manage patients.


Human Digitization

Advanced healthcare equipment now allows for continuous and even remote monitoring of heart rate and blood pressure, breathing rate and brevity, body temperature, and blood oxygen concentration. All these data can be used by healthcare professionals to diagnose and prepare treatment plans accordingly even without needing you in the room. Precise body imaging and more advanced 3D printers are allowing for organ reconstruction, which can someday provide an adequate supply of organs for transplant patients.


Related articles

Heart Failure Treatment

Heart failure is a disease that's costly to diagnose and impacts many people. A private, non-profit organization is currently testing three kinds of sensors that are attached as accessories - necklace, watch, and wristband. The sensors provide real-time feedback on how a weak heart functions. Medications can be altered and diet can be tweaked to address the data collected by the sensors. This makes the traditional routine of manually measuring weight gain in patients more efficient.


Remote Diagnostics

Advancements in mobile technology have sparked a huge trend in patients using electronic devices to get checked up by a healthcare professional. These platforms also enable requesting for prescription refills via a text, phone call, or video chat. While convenience is the most obvious benefit to remote diagnostics and treatment apps, the trend remains untested and unproven hence the risks involved cannot be ignored.

remote medical diagnostics for space
NASA is developing remote diagnostic technology to advance the space program
Image source - NASA

Disease Database

While it's not exactly a win-win for humanity that there's a big old book for so many diseases, the fact that technology has enabled professionals and organizations to categorize and record illnesses and their respective causes and symptoms in digital format is definitely a step closer to reducing the cases of these diseases.


Web-Based Medical Records

As more and more insurance companies and primary care facilities are merging together to take advantage of new market characteristics, the need for efficient transfer of data, particularly patient records, is increasing. Several challenges surround the goal of combining data from multiple facilities and companies including the volume, variation, and complexity of data concepts. When an existing medical record is allowed to convert to a new EMR, it enables these mergers and acquisitions to be achieved in a more efficient manner. It also makes patient records more mobile and accessible for the healthcare facilities that need to access them.

Each technological advancement in the healthcare field has its pros and cons. Fortunately, as the underlying technology becomes better, so will the positive effects of the tech to the healthcare field.



By  Emma SturgisEmbed


Emma is a freelance writer currently living in Boston. When not writing, she enjoys baking and indoor rock climbing. Find her on Google +

0 comments:

Post a Comment