Technology has modernized all sectors of human life. From entertainment to commerce, the impact of technology has been felt across the world. When it comes to the healthcare industry, artificial intelligence, nanotech, and robotics are some of the innovative techs changing the face of operations and functions. With each passing day, they continue to help healthcare providers diagnose ailments faster, cut wait times, and, most importantly, save more lives.
That said, in this article, we look at four ways technology has impacted healthcare. Let’s get started.
Technology Provides Easily Accessible Electronic Patient Databases
The days of storing rows and rows of patients’ files are slowly coming to their end. Today, medical practitioners are adopting electronic databases in a bid to collate massive amounts of patients’ data quickly. In turn, this yields more efficiency in operations since it becomes easy for medical experts to find the health history, laboratory results, and vital-organ details of their patients.
Apart from that, by using an electronic database, a healthcare provider can view information on previous prescriptions administered to a patient. Last but not least, it allows them to create and update patient records for reference at a later time.
On the patient’s side, electronic databases help avail relevant health information, accessed via patient portals. In turn, they can anticipate their treatments and plan accordingly.
Technology Enhances Communication Among Medical Experts and Patients
Sharing information, be it patient records or professional consultations, is essential in the healthcare sector. It is mainly the case since medical practitioners are often busy and bound by HIPAA restrictions, making them quite hard to find. As such, by adopting new technologies, healthcare providers can have better connections to their patients and the other way around.
Today, doctors can use a social network called Doximity to interact with their colleagues safely. On the platform, medical professionals can access curated medical news, collaborate on patient cases, and relay messages to each other. As of now, Doximity’s membership in the US has increased to include over 70% of physicians and a rising number of NPs, PAs, and pharmacists.
Another useful technology for enhancing communication in this field is Sherpaa. With this service, you do not have to take a trip to the ER. Instead, you can access medical consultations, either via telephone or online. As a patient, you can communicate with top medical professionals and get treated for acute or chronic ailments.
Technology Enhances Testing and Imaging
The medical tests used by practitioners today are way more effective than those used in past years. Today, there are more advanced tracking and monitoring technologies, for example, magnetic resource imaging, electrocardiography, X-ray, computed tomography, and sonography. With these techs, medical experts can take high-quality pictures of anatomical features as well as physiological operations. This way, they can identify any health issues early enough and take suitable preventive and treatment measures.
An exciting technology aspect, when it comes to medical imaging tech, is big data and analytics. According to an article on Medical Design and Outsourcing, the ongoing advancement of big data and data mining will offer radiology experts real-time data during imaging procedures. As a result, errors will be minimized and more personalized care provided.
How is this achieved? First, note, at this point, data analysis steps in. With analytics, medical practitioners can tap into a hybrid cloud and identify patterns that match a particular pathology from a digital image. After that, radiologists can determine whether the conclusions match their ideas, leading to faster and more accurate diagnoses.
Technology Helps Predict Medical Trends
Thanks to the presence of numerous medical sites, people can make a self-diagnose ahead of reaching out to a doctor. While this is not an entirely good thing, it has enabled search engines such as Google and Bing to forecast medical trends/ issues. By assessing the health info that users search on the internet, search engines can help pinpoint areas with flu outbreaks, among other ailments. When this data is relayed to medical experts, they can get prepared for any illnesses and be ready to act swiftly to mitigate the same.
Final Thoughts
These are just four of the many ways technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry. As we head into the future, we can count on technology to improve patient treatment rates like never before. So, it is up to us to always stay abreast of any recent developments to ensure that we seek the most suitable medical solutions for our health issues. By doing so, ultimately, we will be guaranteed of better healthcare.