Technology is playing the biggest role in healthcare. But still, many healthcare stakeholders are not paying enough attention to the true potential of robust technology solutions. If the situation remains the same, we will not be able to survive another pandemic like COVID-19. That’s the reason we have decided to write this blog in order to help healthcare professionals and stakeholders in understanding the need for technology in care delivery.
10 Reasons Behind Choosing Technology in Care Delivery
The ultimate goal of technology in care delivery is to improve the lives of patients, healthcare workers, and stakeholders.
Here is how it brings peace of mind to healthcare.
1. It Lowers The Errors
Medical errors result in almost 2.6 million deaths annually in low and middle-income nations. It is one of the leading causes of death across the globe. (WHO)
Not only this but it also costs $40 billion annually. But what are the reasons behind the medical errors?
- Poor communication between healthcare professionals and patients
- The low-grade flow of the information
- Manual data entry is one of the primary reasons behind the medical errors
- Inadequate staffing
But technology has a perfect solution to decode these life-threatening concerns in care delivery. For instance,
- RPA (Robotic Process Automation) automates the manual data entry process
- Healthcare collaboration platforms make clinical communication faster and more accurate
2. It has the potential to reduce the work burden and burnout of the healthcare workers
The COVID-19 pandemic has put a high burden on healthcare workers. Because of that reason, the entire community is now exhausted both physically and mentally.
As a result, there is a rise in burnout among healthcare professionals which is pushing them to quit their jobs. That’s the cause, there is a massive shortage of qualified healthcare workers in developed nations such as the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, and the list goes on and on.
But with technology, the healthcare industry can prevent this chaos. Lowering the amount of computer-based repetitive tasks and eliminating the need for manual data entry can almost reduce the work burden on medical staff by up to 80%.
Similar to the above reason, RPA has the potential to reduce the work burden which directly reduces the chances of physician and nurse staff burnout.
What’s more, the integration of the two technology solutions also helps in the same way as it eliminates the need of operating multiple software for two different tasks.
3. It can predict the outcome
Just imagine the outcome of the healthcare services when the healthcare professional can analyze both positive and negative results of the care plan! It’s not an imagination anymore.
Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) are already doing wonders when it comes to predicting the outcome of each move the healthcare professional takes on analyzing and diagnosing the patient.
However, accuracy is a major question here as these technologies are still in the development phase. But the future is promising for AI, ML, and DL in the healthcare industry.
For instance, As per Fortune Business Insights, “The global AI in healthcare market size was valued at USD 13.82 billion in 2022 and estimated to reach USD 164.10 billion by 2029!”
4. It helps in diagnosing the patients precisely and efficiently
Healthcare professionals always look forward to providing faster, more efficient, and result-driven care delivery. But our old-age ecosystem restricts them to focus on the care experience of the patients.
In addition, predicting the right diagnosis without technological equipment is troublesome for healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals including medical practitioners and nurses need tech equipment for care delivery as well as for identifying the right diagnosis.
As a result, equipment like symptom monitors, electrosurgical, sterilizers, City scan machines, and X-ray machines are used to ensure the correct illness of the patient in the case of bone being broken.
Technologies like IoT, AI, and machine learning are enabled in this equipment through which the machines give accurate data with a prediction of diagnosis.
5. Reduce the gap between patients and healthcare professionals during care delivery
There are certain gaps and barriers along the way of care delivery. Which interrupts the entire care delivery process. Technology can help in refilling the whole structure of care delivery. The gaps that need to be underlined are…
- Weak communication bridge between patients and doctors
- Lack of availability of care facilities in rural areas
- Hassling for getting consultations from doctors
- Fail to monitor a patient’s vital symptoms in real-time leads to issues in care delivery
- Instant treatment support in case of urgency
As a result, technology can help to overcome these gaps hassle-free. Using such solutions as telemedicine, medical practice management software, and vice versa can be effective.
6. Support healthcare professionals to monitor patients
Keeping an eye on the patient’s illness and watching their vital symptoms constantly is not possible for healthcare professionals. Meanwhile, they have to attend to other patients and treat them.
This creates a need for more medical staff to monitor patients and help healthcare professionals in care delivery, which is more expensive. But due to a shortage of qualified medical staff, it becomes problematic for healthcare professionals to attain more patients and also fail in delivering the proper care delivery.
As a result, devices like remote patient monitoring are used to monitor patients constantly. Even though Iot based devices like smartwatch provides real-time data which can be shared with healthcare professionals from anywhere anytime.
These devices are enabled with IoT technology in order to collect real-time data through sensors and share it with the help of the IoT cloud using mobile applications.
7. Make care journey faster and time-saving
From booking appointments to getting consultations from doctors. The journey of care delivery is so overwhelming for the patients as well as for the healthcare professionals. The majority of healthcare enterprises are still practicing traditional methods, and they remain separated from the list of modern care delivery methods. Upgrading the care delivery process can help them to save time and money.
Let’s understand it by taking a scenario…
Suppose one of your family members is suffering from chronic illness and needs to visit hospitals and clinics regularly for check-ups. Meanwhile, booking appointments while calling the hospital, calling on hold, and after getting confirmations, visiting the clinic and waiting for several minutes in the waiting room and then getting consulted with doctors.
The whole process is overwhelming for patients, especially for those patients who are suffering from chronic illness, as they need to consult a doctor regularly. As a result, software like telemedicine can help to make this ride more reliable and time-saving.
Using telemedicine completes the process in just a few steps:
- Open the app
- Book the appointment in just a few taps
- Get virtual treatment
- Consult doctor anytime
- Chat with doctors
- Get E-prescriptions
- Access care delivery anytime from anywhere
8. Real-time records
Conserving patients’ health records is challenging for healthcare professionals as well as for medical staff. The data can be used for better treatment.
One of the best advantages of technology is that doctors can save real-time health records of their patients and access them when it is needed using software like EHR(electronic health records) and EMR( electronic medical records).
Sometimes doctors can forget their patients’ treatment history, but using EHR can help them to analyze the patient’s health status. Which eventually saves the time and money of the healthcare professionals.
9. Innovate drugs and help in the treatment of murderous diagnosis
Drug discovery is like solving an unsolved puzzle. Which is very complex and to make it more simple technology like AI supports it.
AI(artificial intelligence) helps in testing multiple drug samples and identifying the right one which has high accuracy.
It is not only supported in flashy gene-sequencing work. But also trained to predict the efficiency of drug discovery. In addition, it is also used to manage vast amounts of data that support any pharmaceutical product.
For instance, the drugs discovered were facing issues in preventing the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. But with the help of AI, it becomes possible to find the right medicine for the virus.
10. Virtual treatment
Virtual treatment facilities are one of the most beautiful gifts given by technology to healthcare.
Current days, people prefer to get treatment virtually by seating in their comfort zone which can be their home or any other place.
Especially, for chronic patients, choosing a virtual treatment option is suitable.
However, using modern technology people can easily consult doctors, chat with doctors and discuss their problems and take online treatment at any time.
This facility has opened the door to connecting healthcare to rural areas and making effective use of health-tech resources.
Final Words:
Although, the future of healthcare is technology and it is already showing a positive signal by proving it. The role of technology in building modern healthcare is admired.
“The size of the global digital health industry was predicted to be USD 216.7 billion in 2022 and USD 1.5 trillion by 2030.”
