Healthcare providers around the world are paving a path towards IT for providing quality care to the patients along with safety.

It’s time for Healthcare industry to explore the opportunities by availing mobile devices and apps that can transform the way healthcare professionals deliver care and heighten patient satisfaction.

Advancements in technology replaced the traditional systems, now people can undergo consultation and treatment amidst of their homes.

Let’s have a quick view of few technological developments and its impact on healthcare

Mobile Stroke Units (MSU):

MSU is an ambulance that can provide prehospital stroke treatment. If a patient is suffering and in want of immediate treatment he can get it with no loss of time for transport to the hospital through MSU that houses a CT scanner and other required laboratory equipment essential for the diagnosis of stroke. Then the reports and CT images are sent to medical practitioners via telemedicine, continuous exchange of information between patient and physicians result in faster and better treatment causing less damage to the patient’s health. MSU saves lives and aims to cut fatality rate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-0TRS21KsU

mHealth:

With a noble aim to support the needy people the usage of mobile devices and wireless technologies were extended to health service. According to the International Telecommunication Union, the number of wireless subscribers are increasing year by year and over 70% of total subscribers reside in low and middle-income countries.
mHealth is an abbreviation for mobile health which means the practice of medicine and public health with the help of mobile devices.
mHealth applications help in providing real-time monitoring and transmission of patient’s health data to researchers, providers and in providing them proper care using smartphones, tablets, computers. An R&R Market Research report estimates the global mHealth market will reach $20.7 billion by 2019. Shortly mHealth will be a part of our life.

Wearable Medical Devices:

Wearables are gaining an extensive range of popularity in the healthcare industry as they tend to target the riskiest chronic illnesses like heart diseases, diabetes, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases that require regular monitoring. It is mandatory to get the approval of wearable medical devices from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Wearable Medical Devices includes biosensors, hearing aids, watches, wristbands, shoes, shirts, eyeglasses, belts, necklaces and much more that usually measures and track patient’s temperature, heart rate, respiratory scale and monitors glucose levels continuously.

Individuals are quite keen to understand about their body and health, wearables make it easy, and interestingly not only patients but also professionals are adopting wearables such as Google Glass that save both time and money along with better treatment as they monitor and collect medical-grade data for their use.

These wearable alerts nurses via smartphones that enable them in prioritizing patients.
Projections for the future of wearables vary, but there is consensus that the category has high-growth potential:

Wearable medical device market: $41 billion (£28.3 billion) by 2020, 65% CAGR. Source: Soreon Research.

Clinical and non-clinical wearable patch market: $3.3 billion (£2.3 billion) or 12.3 million units, by 2020 up from 67,000 units in 2014. Source: Tractica.

Electronic Health Records:

An Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records, and it consists of patient’s medical history, treatments, allergies, clinical data that make health data available promptly and securely to authorized users anywhere and anytime.

Present world is profoundly influenced by digital technology – smartphones, tablets, web-enabled devices helps in bringing information on our finger tips, as Medicine is an information-rich enterprise EHRs helps the medical practitioners to deliver better Medicare and reduce the incidence of medical error and duplication of tests along with providing clarity of health information.

As per the survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit in June 2014 on the impact of mobile health, the study included 144 CEOs, managers, administrators and business development strategists in public and private healthcare, as well as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical device manufacturing, in 23 countries.

Most executives surveyed (64%) believe that the ability of new mobile technologies and services to provide greater patient access to medical information“could dramatically improve health outcomes.”

A similar proportion (63%) also predicts that “greater patient access to their personal data will allow people to make better decisions about their health.”

Mobile health could reduce medical costs for individuals (cited by 24% of respondents), offer more effective approaches to preventing epidemics and pandemics (20%) and lower costs for institutions (17%).

Source: https://www.eiseverywhere.com/file_uploads/a488bbdd996ced16c346b0d88551f384_HowMobileisTransformingHealthcare_Economist.pdf

Many companies are willing to develop healthcare apps for mobile phones as it is considered to be an emerging market. Currently, nearly 40,000 healthcare apps are available in the market.

Smartphones are capable of diagnosing virus in a drop of blood within no time which helps in spotting out the infected persons and restrict the spread of epidemics.

The cost incurred by individuals towards healthcare may drastically fall. Easy and quick treatment is possible as patients and doctors can access health records in real-time which involve them in taking better decisions.
Though technology helps us to provide better treatment even to the rural population, it cannot understand the complexity of human health.The biggest challenge is to ensure the privacy of patients.

According to the EIU survey, mobile health technologies mainly aim to provide education and information about health. When they interviewed many experts,found that technology could slash spending on health care in many developed countries, thus lowering the overall cost of healthcare.

Undoubtedly technological breakthroughs will drive the healthcare industry in future.