The demand for affordable, equal, and the best medical services has led to various changes in the medical sectors. Some of these changes are multifaceted or target specific functions and areas such as patient handling. One critical element of all these changes is the integration of technology. Healthcare is adopting different technologies previously considered suitable for only commercial purposes.
Technology is likely to drive the change while maintaining the costs lower. Despite the backlashes and barriers, effective implementation could be what all hospitals need to offer affordable and the best medical services. This has already been tested and proven; however, more is needed if the major players require healthcare to be streamlined.
The Necessity for Digital Health Revolution
Technology has a greater significance to healthcare practices and departments to help hospitals accomplish various goals and objectives. Some of the common reasons for adopting the digital revolution include:
- Integration of New Treatment Process
There are many organic products with capabilities to change the healthcare landscape. Hospitals rely heavily on chemically manufactured medication and drugs for various conditions. The challenge for such approaches is that constant and long-term use could have some effects on the patients. This includes accumulating chemicals in patients' bodies, eventually leading to conditions such as tumors and cancers.
In the era of organic and sustainable approaches to medication, digital technology such as Nanotechnology can significantly help with drug manufacturing. This helps include organic products such as soy beans and herbs in drugs to facilitate organic, sustainable medication. Such applications could motivate U.S. soybean farmers and producers to increase soy production for medical benefits and as part of medical sustainability. Technology can revolutionize pharmaceutical practices to make them more efficient and sustainable for all patients.
- Better Services
Traditional healthcare largely depended on human services, such as people in charge of various roles such as diagnosis, health records, monitoring, and follow-up activities. This meant that the fate of patients lay with the hospital staff; as such, they would be subject to human errors, the impact of emotions on service delivery, etc.
Sometimes, the medical staff is overwhelmed by the number of patients affecting service delivery. Such issues led to longer waiting periods and staff exhaustion, further affecting the delivery of medical services.
Digital services aim to correct all these shortcomings by integrating machines and technologies in various activities and functions to boost services. This is evident in automated systems such as MRI and X-ray machines to boost diagnostic and medical errors. The other application is medical systems for filing, data storage, and prescription guidelines to issue drugs based on prescription.
- Remote and Virtual Healthcare Services
Healthcare is fast changing to achieve the goals of global healthcare delivery and meet the equity healthcare agenda. Doctors prefer remote healthcare services for various needs, such as monitoring patients. Besides remote services, newer systems provide a platform where patients can input their signs and symptoms and then allow systems diagnostics. The systems can recommend the ideal medication and treatment plan from the diagnostic results.
Besides the treatment plan and guidelines, patients can attend consultancy services virtually to avoid the burden of traveling to hospitals. Due to data and patient information sharing, doctors and patients need a system enabling data access from any location and anywhere.
This will help in understanding patient history and medical diagnostics. With modern digital technology, all these activities are possible by implementing medical wearables, cloud services, and cloud-based diagnostic systems. Despite the current barriers, telemedicine has the potential to offer more in the future.
- Data Privacy and Regulatory Concerns
Hospitals are constantly monitored and supervised to ensure they offer the best medical services. Failure to abide by these new regulations could have more consequences on the hospitals hence the need for digital technology to abide by regulations. They significantly boost safety, data, and service delivery compliance standards.
Relying on healthcare system security protocols can help hospitals avoid data attacks and hacking, a major challenge for many hospitals. Cloud systems and securities help with risk identification and prevention even before occurrence. The hospital's digital filing system can protect from risks such as unauthorized data access from both internal and external perpetrators. These systems are critical for data safety and privacy, which improves patient trust in the hospital and can trust the hospital with more data.
Other digital technologies streamline the diagnostics and prescription systems to avoid any risks arising from these functions. They are also critical for other safety protocols, such as preventing falls likely to affect the hospital's reputation or lead to negligence cases.
- Emergency Responses
Hospitals heavily rely on ambulatory services to offer a faster medical response and first aid services. Digital technology is currently revolutionizing emergency response services such as air ambulance services. Initially, a greater focus was on relying on ambulances and helicopters to reach the disaster zones and take patients to the hospitals. However, ambulatory face significant challenges, especially in accessing certain areas.
For instance, scanning the environment and reaching remote locations and other inaccessible zones would be challenging. Eventually, patients would die before medical teams made it, or the team would arrive when patients wore getting worse. The industry is turning to drones as part of the ambulatory services to correct the situation.
Drones are becoming a critical part of ambulatory services by helping in various ways. They can be sued for search and rescue, supporting the team on the ground and assessing the area before landing the helicopters. Though tests are ongoing, they have proven effective in boosting emergency response.
Conclusion
Digital technology has a greater potential to change the healthcare landscape. It is already doing more, and with the ongoing tests and trials, there are more potentials to change healthcare. It can significantly affect all medical sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, emergency response, patient care, virtual medicine, etc.
