There is no denying the fact that healthcare around the world is in crisis. Not only is there a shortage of doctors and nurses, but funding is at an all-time low and in the United States with the Affordable Care Act in full swing, it can take months to get into a specialist which could be a matter of life and death. Much the same can be said for other countries that have social healthcare programs and so the world is looking to technology to make improvements that are much needed but not yet forthcoming – except that is when technology enters the picture. Here is how technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry in three very profound ways.
1. Making Treatment More Accessible
One of the major focal points of healthcare informatics at schools such as the University of Illinois is to provide ways for patients to communicate faster and easier with their healthcare providers. With the development of wearables technology, patient vital signs and other key metrics are analyzed locally with a wearable that then communicates the results to the doctor or hospital. If that patient is in crisis, the provider can immediately get that patient in to be seen.
In the past, in the days before health care informatics and wearable technology, all the provider had to go on was what the patient was reporting which was often so mired in laymen’s language that the immediacy of concern wasn’t expressed. Many patients suffered severe consequences as a result so technology in healthcare is now making treatment accessible because reliable data is available in real time and in language that expresses the need for immediate intervention. Fewer patients are suffering life-threatening consequences because of reliable data transmission in real time.
2. Implementation of Software to Control Disease and Improve Patient Outcomes
As mentioned above, software in the realm of health informatics provides real time analysis of diseases along with the current state of a patient’s health. Consider the possibilities in areas where there is an outbreak of influenza such as the H1N1 virus that killed hundreds of thousands of people globally just a few years ago in 2009. Software that controls the collection of data by the diagnostic device would send information immediately to his or her provider who in turn would isolate that patient from the general population in a controlled environment until a more accurate diagnosis could be made. All this based on vital signs collected by that consumer’s wearable.
3. Improved Efficiency in Care
As all of the above substantiates, technology has literally revolutionized the industry by offering increased accessibility to healthcare providers and also aids in the control of diseases, many of which are communicable. But healthcare informatics technology can also offer improved efficiency in care. Those same metrics being analyzed in terms of disease can also provide key indicators as to how well a patient may or may not be doing in a home environment. All it takes is a professional with a masters in health care informatics to program and analyze key metrics and doctors around the globe are able to offer much quicker and much more efficient care due to real time analytics.
How has technology revolutionized healthcare? In simple terms, it has improved both the speed and efficiency of care so that doctors are more accessible than ever before. There is nothing quite like digital technology for offering real-time analytics when it comes to patient care and that, above all is the most revolutionary aspect of technology in healthcare, the speed at which the need for care can be analyzed and the speed at which a patient can receive that care. To sum it up in one word? Speed.