There is simply no denying how mobile devices and technology has become an inseparable part of human life. In the last few years, more precisely after the touch screen revolution overtook the world, mobile devices have become a part and parcel of life. However, mobile technology is not only good for socializing in a digital way or enjoying HD movies and streaming music on the move. The smartphones can be useful for more than taking selfies at landmark places with close ones. With time, mobile devices and technology are also infiltrating healthcare and medical sector. From doctors to researchers, and patients, everyone is benefitting from its deployment.
4 Ways In Which Mobile Technology is Transforming the Healthcare Industry
1. Better connect between physicians and patients
Gone are the days when parents used to call up the family physicians to learn the remedy of an infection affecting their kids. It is an era when new and unforeseen ailments are invading homes and people are dealing with terminally ill elderly relatives and ailments are turning chronic. So, more interaction with healthcare providers has become necessary. Thanks to mobile technology, communicating and interacting with doctors have become simpler for patients nowadays. It is not always necessary to drive up to the clinic when all you need is some advice or the complication is not severe. With high speed LTE mobile network spreading everywhere, video conferencing with doctors is no longer tedious. Skype and similar VoIP tools are actually used by a lot of doctors to communicate with patients in a lucid and simple way. It is no longer necessary to have a computer to use such services. Such apps can be used in tablets and smartphones without hassle.
2. Mobile health apps
Nowadays, a majority of people use Smartphone apps to shop, buy movie tickets, look for flights and so on. The popularity of health apps is also growing with time. Thousands of healthcare related apps are available for major mobile platforms, including iOS, Android and Windows mobile. There are both free and paid apps.
Mobile health apps can broadly be classified into two types- wellness and medical. More than 80 percent of such apps are wellness related while the rest are clinical apps. The latter is mostly used by the doctors and medical professionals for carrying out various diagnosis and tests. They can also make use of apps to fetch data on individual patients and track progress of treatment, etc.
Wellness apps can be of various types as well, including health information, self-measurement, physical fitness and health stats monitoring etc. These apps are used daily by millions of heath aware women and men, including elderly lot and working professionals. People, who are suffering from chronic and degenerative ailments, can also benefit a lot from using health apps. For example, such apps can be used to get a reminder about taking important medications on time. People who are suffering from memory loss related problems can really benefit from using such apps. They no longer need to depend on fellow humans. Over time, chronically ill patients can understand if their health conditions are worsening by analyzing the output given by the apps.
Apart from these, enterprise level clinical apps are being deployed in mid to large scale healthcare setups including hospitals, specialty clinics and allied medical setups. The management can benefit from deploying apps to monitor activities and schedule of their staffs in such setups, for example. In fact, doctors can benefit significantly from using specialized apps to communicate with colleagues, especially in situations where the team is conducting a joint operation or research.
3. Wearable devices for health needs
Healthcare apps are no longer limited to smartphones. The popularity of wearable devices is also on the rise. These devices resemble designer bracelets. You need to wear them on the wrist. They run on batteries and are pretty lightweight. Apart from displaying your heart rate, blood sugar level and such vital physical stats, these bands also support integration with Smartphone platforms. The day is not far when these small devices can be useful for detecting symptoms of critical ailments in users.
4. Easy access to records
As a matter of fact, doctors need to deal with enormous amounts of clinical data and resources. The amount of such data only piles up with time. Storing and accessing the data using traditional methods leads to wastage of time and there is the risk of data loss too. However, when the physicians resort to storing data in cloud servers and access them using various mobile devices, such hassles are largely minimized. They are also able to save a lot of time and become more productive at work. Patients can also get easy access to their medical records for various needs using mobile devices. With blazing fast network becoming cheaper with time, accessing video and any resource is no longer a hurdle.
Where It All Leads To?
Mobile technology is evolving very fast and stuffs that were only possible with science fiction have become reality. Medical science has already embraced mobile technology in an unprecedented way and it is likely to continue. Things will get better for both patients and physicians in the near future. Mobile devices will be equipped with more advanced and accurate sensors to monitor health statistics. Deployment of mobile devices and technology in healthcare will result in better diagnosis, time saving and treatment.