Digital Healthcare encompasses the use of various technologies, including telehealth services, health information technology, and mobile health (mHealth), to enhance communication between doctors and patients across healthcare systems. This technological advancement empowers consumers with greater access to and ownership of their health information, while allowing doctors to gain a comprehensive understanding of their patients’ health.
Read More: World Stroke Day
The Significance of Digital Health
Digital health technology has become increasingly important, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Modern digital health solutions are improving relationships between patients and their doctors, expanding preventive disease strategies, and shifting healthcare toward value-based treatment. This increases access to health information for both patients and providers.
The Importance of Digital Health
Effective communication between medical devices and systems is crucial. Patients and medical professionals can better understand each person’s health status by safely transferring data between platforms. Cloud-based digital health solutions that exchange data will lead the tremendous transformation that will take healthcare to the next level.
Digital health is predicted to halt the rising rates of various diseases by enabling people to track their health and giving doctors easy access to patient data.
Benefits of Digital Health
Digital health technologies use computing platforms, software, connectivity, and sensors to monitor health metrics and serve other relevant purposes. These new technologies can effectively aid in the handling of patients requiring chronic care management (CCM) services, such as diabetes. Medical items, including medications, devices, and biologics, are frequently employed in this regard. Additionally, they could be utilized to research or develop medicinal items.
How Digital Health Helps
Responsive and Sustainable Healthcare
As life expectancy increases, so does the number of people living with chronic diseases, leading to a dramatic increase in healthcare costs. Digital health approaches are becoming more prevalent due to changes in the healthcare industry. Ground-breaking technologies are ushering in a new era of wearables and competent care.
These platforms have also contributed to easing the pressure on medical staff members and facilities like clinics and hospitals by introducing the idea of self-care and patient remote monitoring solutions.
Prevention Before Treatment
Digital health technologies assist people in managing their health issues by regularly monitoring and tracking symptoms. More importantly, it is a technique for the early diagnosis of critical alterations in disease progression in a patient before lung health has been irreparably affected. Therefore, both those with respiratory diseases and those who are considered “at risk” can significantly benefit from using digital health platforms.
Remodeling Doctor-Patient Relationship
Digital health systems include patients and their medical professionals in formulating care and treatment plans. The simplicity of direct, shared access to a patient’s health status enhances the doctor-patient relationship’s sense of partnership, transparency, and trust. A clear profile of the sensitivity of the patient’s condition can be prevented by real-time logging of significant health-related elements such as time of day, environmental stimulants, medication use, and treatment adherence.
Expanding The Reach of Healthcare Professionals
Digital healthcare solutions aim to reduce the administrative workload and other tedious tasks that healthcare professionals must complete. As a result, they spend more time interacting with and monitoring patients. This is essential for patients, clinics, outpatient care facilities, or home care settings where travel may be difficult or not recommended. Patients are prepared to provide their doctor access to their health information anytime, thanks to the clinical-grade technologies they carry.
Leveling The Platform
The cost of managing a patient’s ailment is lessened for both the clinic and the patient since clinics have access to reasonably priced medical technologies. Many online communities are accessible through digital health platforms, providing patients with support and opportunities to interact with people with comparable medical conditions.
Challenges of Digital Health
The digital revolution of healthcare has brought up several issues affecting patients, medical professionals, technology developers, policymakers, and others. Data interoperability is a continuous difficulty due to the enormous amounts of data collected from numerous systems that store and code data differently.
Additional difficulties stem from data storage, access, sharing, and ownership, patient computer literacy problems, and unequal healthcare access. These considerations subsequently lead to worries about security and privacy. For instance, what would happen if employers or insurers wished to aggregate data from the results of genetic tests given directly to consumers by employees? What happens if medical equipment gets tainted?
Concerns about technology and ethics are also present. For instance, who is accountable for surgical errors when medical robots are employed: the hospital, the company that developed or manufactured the technology, the physician who utilized the robot, or someone else?
The Future of Digital Health
Although digital health is still relatively new in the United States, consumers can take control of their care as healthcare services continue to shift to a digital paradigm. As a result, people of all generations will be better informed about their health and able to decide what kind of care they need. There have been many developments in digital health in the United States by a leading healthcare technology company under the name of CareCloud Wellness.
Recently, CareCloud exhibited live at the 2022 Becker’s Health IT, digital health, and RCM annual meeting in Chicago to share and learn about the information technology problems affecting the healthcare sector and the advancements transforming care delivery with their Digital health solutions.
The digital health suite of technologies known as CareCloud Wellness is advancing the next generation of healthcare. Be a part of the industry’s transition from transactional to relational interactions.
Benefits of Digital Health
Digital health uses the power of digital technologies, such as advanced analytics, to achieve health care goals. As a result, the field has the opportunity to positively impact everyone from patients to health care providers and professionals. Some of the most common benefits include:
- Expanded access to health care to historically marginalized communities
- Decreased health care costs for both patients and providers
- Improved patient health outcomes through personalized treatment plans
- Increased operation efficiency at health facilities, such as hospitals
- Improved diagnoses through machine learning algorithms
Telemedicine and Telehealth Technologies
Telemedicine leverages telecommunication and electronic information technologies to provide only clinical services to patients in remote locations. For instance, a remote patient’s health reports and details are shared with a doctor. The patient and doctor interact through audio-visual communication channels, and the doctor’s prescription is sent to the patient in almost real-time.
Telehealth is telemedicine and much more. It includes non-clinical services as well. Other than telecommunication technologies, it leverages other digital technologies to provide clinical services, impart health education to patients and professionals, and support the administration of public health.
Mobile Health (m-Health) and Wearable Technologies
These applications help in the sharing of health information through mobile technologies and wearable devices. m-Health technologies use mobile applications and wearable technologies, such as smartwatches, fitness bands, etc., to track and monitor various health parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, sleep quality, and more.
Electronic Medical and Health Records (EMR/EHR)
Our medical history is a window to our health, which can guide doctors to make the correct diagnoses and prescribe treatment regimens. But often, we don’t have the information as only a few people may have historical medical records intact. Digital technologies can maintain every patient’s EMR/EHR at a centralized repository which can be accessed by a patient or an authorized doctor from anywhere in India at any point in time. This will empower hospitals and doctors to make more informed decisions about a patient. From a policy-making viewpoint, it will also give Government a national and regional picture of the prevalence and incidence of diseases, which will help them design better public health policies.
Personalized Medicine
This is the next frontier of healthcare delivery. Using advanced digital technologies, it is increasingly becoming possible to devise a customized treatment regimen that is unique to an individual patient. An emerging field, personalized medicine uses the individual genetic profile to devise a treatment regimen, and digital technologies are playing a major role in the evolution of this field.
Benefits of Digital Healthcare
Digital healthcare is gaining huge popularity amongst healthcare providers. World over, healthcare leaders and hospital administrators are accelerating the adoption of digital healthcare solutions. The following are some of the benefits of digital healthcare which have made digitalization a must for the healthcare community globally.
- Digital healthcare solutions are easy to adopt, implement, and scale up and down as per the needs of the healthcare provider.
- The solutions make healthcare delivery operations and systems more efficient and effective.
- They enhance the quality of treatment and healthcare services.
- They amplify the reach and accessibility of medical care services to distant geographies.
- Digital technologies make healthcare more affordable to people across socioeconomic order.
- Healthcare delivery becomes stronger with more agility, resiliency, and adaptability against uncertainties.
- They boost the sustenance and viability of hospitals and healthcare models.
- They help guide public health policy-making at the regional and national levels.
Challenges of Using Digital Healthcare
As no system is perfect, digital healthcare has its share of challenges. The following issues create reluctance in healthcare service providers and keep them from digitalizing their systems.
- Reluctance to change: As human beings, we get comfortable with established systems and patterns that we have worked hard to adapt to. New technologies and processes disrupt existing systems, and hence, there is an innate nature to resist the adoption of digital technologies.
- Low digital expertise: Much of the Indian healthcare workforce and population have low digital literacy and expertise. As a result, there are significant time, cost, and energy factors involved to upskill the workforce to optimize the use of digital healthcare solutions. Digital education of the general population is also important so that they can access and interact with digital healthcare solutions.
- Cost of transition: There is a significant cost involved in transitioning to digital healthcare solutions, especially when hospitals want to have their own digital solution. While digital technologies are cost-effective, but the realized value comes over a period of time. However, innovative models, such as subscription and pay-per-use formats, are making the switch to digital healthcare economically viable.
- Data quality and security: Digital systems are relatively new, complex, and vulnerable to cyber threats. Healthcare providers usually need more than mere assurances to trust the security of a system they are about to adopt. They also have to be sure that the data generated is accurate and of high quality.
- Government policies: Historically, technology evolves faster, and policy-making follows. Policy uncertainties around digital healthcare solutions impact their acceptance
Conclusion:
In summary, digital healthcare is transforming how healthcare services are delivered and accessed, bringing patients and providers closer while ensuring data accuracy, efficiency, and personalized care. With advancements like telemedicine, mobile health apps, and AI-driven diagnostics, healthcare is evolving rapidly. Despite the challenges such as data security, privacy concerns, and technology access, digital healthcare remains a powerful tool in advancing healthcare equity and accessibility. As innovations continue, digital healthcare promises to make medical care more proactive, preventative, and patient-centered.
Read More: Digital Healthcare
FAQs:
What is digital healthcare?
Digital healthcare is the use of digital technologies, like apps and telemedicine, to improve health services, patient care, and data management.
How does digital healthcare benefit patients?
It offers better accessibility, convenience, and faster access to medical advice and care, improving overall patient experience.
What are some examples of digital healthcare tools?
Examples include telemedicine, electronic health records (EHRs), mobile health apps, wearable devices, and AI-driven diagnostic tools.
Is digital healthcare secure?
Most digital healthcare systems use advanced encryption and privacy protocols, but security concerns remain a focus due to risks of data breaches.
What is telemedicine?
Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunications technology, such as video calls and online consultations.
How does AI impact digital healthcare?
AI can assist in diagnostics, personalized treatment planning, predictive analytics, and even in administrative tasks, making healthcare more efficient.
What is an Electronic Health Record (EHR)?
An EHR is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart, making patient information available instantly to authorized healthcare providers.
How do wearable devices help in digital healthcare?
Wearable devices like fitness trackers and smartwatches monitor health metrics, such as heart rate, helping users and providers track and manage health in real time.
Is digital healthcare expensive?
Initial costs may be high, but in the long term, it can reduce healthcare costs by making services more efficient and accessible.
Can digital healthcare replace traditional healthcare?
No, but it complements traditional methods by providing additional tools for healthcare providers and making healthcare more accessible.
What role does big data play in digital healthcare?
Big data helps in analyzing large amounts of health data to identify trends, personalize treatments, and improve healthcare outcomes.
Are digital healthcare services available worldwide?
Availability varies by region, as it depends on internet access, digital infrastructure, and healthcare regulations.
How does digital healthcare improve patient outcomes?
It provides timely access to information, real-time monitoring, and predictive analytics, enabling better care and preventive measures.
What is mHealth?
mHealth, or mobile health, is the use of mobile devices and applications to support healthcare practices and patient management.
What challenges does digital healthcare face?
Common challenges include data privacy, cybersecurity risks, regulatory issues, and technology access disparities.
How does digital healthcare affect healthcare providers?
It can ease workloads by automating administrative tasks, improving accuracy in diagnoses, and allowing real-time patient monitoring.
Can digital healthcare reduce hospital readmissions?
Yes, through remote patient monitoring, follow-up care, and early detection of health issues, it can help reduce hospital readmission rates.
What are some popular digital healthcare apps?
Popular apps include MyFitnessPal for nutrition, Doctor on Demand for telemedicine, and FitBit for activity tracking.
How is digital healthcare regulated?
Digital healthcare is regulated by healthcare authorities in each country, focusing on patient data security, privacy, and quality of care.
What is the future of digital healthcare?
The future of digital healthcare includes more personalized care, AI-driven diagnostics, expanded telemedicine, and integration of more wearable technology into mainstream care
