With the advancement of technology in all fields of life, it is hard to ignore its effects in the healthcare industry, since technology has had such a positive impact on all healthcare procedures. The 2009 HITECH act has helped in boosting the use of technology in healthcare.
Technology is helping the healthcare industry move forward and it is evident from all the recent innovations benefiting the patients! Technology helps in creating an efficient relationship between the healthcare services provider and the patients. It makes their difficult job easier, improves communication between them and provides cheaper, faster and fresher solutions to conditions that possibly had no solutions before.
Want to know more about the impact of technology in healthcare, let’s get an overview.
Telehealth is Extending the Reach
Telehealth is a significant improvement in the field of healthcare that helps both the physician and the patient, save money. This technology allows contacting and making appointments and communicating through video calls. This method is especially useful for those living in remote areas and for elderly people. You can even easily share the patients’ medical information and talk about it this way!
This is helpful in several ways; like the patient doesn’t have to spend extra money on transportation, taking time off from work, charges of the appointment and the time spent waiting in lines to get an appointment and then in the waiting room.
Remote Monitoring and Wearable Devices
All the new wearable, portal and monitoring devices are extremely useful in finding out how healthy a patient is. These innovative devices can check your glucose, heart, blood pressure, brain functioning, sleep levels, HIV status, hepatitis B status, etc. It can also carry out quicker and effortless analysis of your urine, saliva and much more!
By using a number of these devices that track your heartbeat and fitness levels you can stay at peak condition. Additionally, this saves you a lot of money! You can avoid spending money on tests and medical devices with these free mobile apps that work like the monitoring devices in a hospital.
Decision Support Systems
The technology-based system is useful to a provider in many surprising ways! This includes providing them with reference tools they might require. If at any instant the physician is confused, they can get a quick check from medication reference guides and treatment protocols to ensure what they’re doing is right.
This helps in improving their decision-making skills their judgment. Additionally, the physician can read reviews of experienced healthcare providers and gain vital knowledge from them. Another thing that healthcare technology is making possible for us is ePrescribing and automating healthcare billing services. This is a convenient and faster way for patients to pick up medications from the pharmacy without the hassle of waiting in long lines and then listing all the things you need. With this, providers can send the pharmacy the prescription over secure communication lines.
3-D Technology
One other amazing thing emerging with the help of technology is 3-D printing. This remarkable technology provides physicians with prototypes in less than a minute. This new and extraordinary advancement enables providers to produce new tissues and has revolutionized organ transplantation and other surgical procedures. This is creating a whole era of advancement of technology for the betterment of patients.
Virtual Reality
When you see Virtual Reality you probably think of playing games and having fun. But that’s not all that VR headsets provide! Virtual Reality headsets are useful for the physician as well as the patient.
VR technology is in use to train healthcare workers in a more realistic and low-risk simulated environment. This way they learn about possible situations that might occur and how they should correctly deal with them. For patients, VR headsets are often used as a therapeutic device to treat anxiety disorder and acute pain. By desensitizing them using virtual simulations they create a calming and comforting virtual environment. This helps patients with phobias as well and ameliorates the life of dementia patients.
Electronic Health Records and Digital Payments
Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems are now easily accessible! With this, the physician or healthcare can get the lab results on their phones and use them accordingly whenever they need it. It helps them stay updated about the patient’s current health and with their test results. On the other hand, paying bills has never been easier and this technology is automating healthcare billing services! Now with just a tap, you can pay your medical bills online. The time of filling pages is long gone, now your smartphone does all the work for you!
Conclusion
All in all, the impact of technology on the healthcare department isn’t short of astounding! Technology is advancing to better the healthcare processes and is ensuring that everyone receives the best treatment. There is no other way forward in healthcare than by inducting the latest technologies into the system.
With how fast smartphones and technology are advancing these days and how easily you can access all of the technology, it is evident they are swiftly reaching their goal!
