Mobile technology has provided vast benefits to the public. As a personal user of handheld devices, you could certainly attest the many advantages this technological breakthrough has brought into your life. When it comes to healthcare, mobile technology is not alienated to it either. While this is not as ubiquitous as it is commercially, many doctors and nurses are opting for iPads and other smartphones to help them guide patients in their medications and treatment advice and of course to communicate.
Although there are many benefits mobile technology contributes to healthcare, there are also some potential disadvantages such as data breaches and conflicting reports regarding clinical safety of mobile health technology. Several studies established that such tech improves the workflow and helps doctor’s productivity, yet again; iPads and smartphones have posed distractions and are considered dangerous to certain patients. In spite of the questions raised about mobile health, we cannot deny the fact that health applications are flourishing nowadays.
Experts cited these lists that may benefit patients and providers in the health market, today and in the future: Mobile technology aids in the growth of medication compliance. It can aid patients in observing medication instructions. Devices can tell the patients why they need to take certain medications. Some patients cannot be expected to actually read or grasp information, that’s why giving them access in a convenient and easy way is a good start.
Mobile technology helps in improving health with its capability to calculate the dosage, should prescriptions run out, it will send a reminder to the patient to get a refill. Once the medication is refilled, it will send a dosage reminder for instance: “It is 8:00 a.m., time to take your heart medication.” Ultimately, this technology has the capability to ask the patients if they have taken the treatment or not. It may work as a delayed reminder; however, it undeniably is a method to record whether the patients took their medication or not. This information provides the hospitals with a way to reduce medication non-compliance, one of the major factors in increased hospital readmissions. In 2009, studies discovered that 17.6% of admissions in hospitals results in readmissions a month after discharge, 11.5% within 2 weeks and 6.2% within a week. These results vary from hospital to hospital and geographically; decreasing readmissions can ultimately reduce healthcare costs.
Hospitals could take advantage to the fullest extent of mobile technology to decrease the number or readmission’s and lower the cost of hospitalizations.
Mobile tech aids in an improved understanding of post-treatment. It provides hospitals and patients a convenient tool to observe hospital discharge information as well as ensure prescriptions. Accurate prescriptions are a serious patient safety concern and it could get better as a result.
When patients are discharged from the hospital, they receive so much paperwork and directions that the patients may not be in the best state to remember every detail regarding prescriptions and treatment requirements. Mobile technology might assist patients in remembering the information that they get when they are discharged by sending reminders and information regarding post-treatment.
This can also help patients in accessing health information. Another way where this can improve health in the future is through applications that can give health information to patients. Mobile technology can draw out health info, which most of the time is unreachable, providing the patients with useful direction. In a more convenient set-up, health information can develop the patient-doctor interaction by updating previous therapies and health conditions. Reputable hospitals and healthcare experts are encouraged to develop specific educational resources in order to provide access to patients as well as allowing them to view and downloading these through the Internet, as well as sending health information.
Mobile devices can help hospitals and healthcare personnel by keeping and observing patient’s health history information. If the doctor can obtain patient’s health history, he can vine an accurate diagnostic.
Mobile technology can help in comprehensive data and enhance population healthcare. It can give information on the most recent and greatest evidence-based medical practices in the world. Apps that track health results can be enhanced further to see where divergences from expected results transpired and why. In the future, health care professionals can work to fix them.
Analysts and scientists can then point out if a medical evidence-based practice has a chance of improving. Keeping track of health results and divergences may enhance the healthcare system’s ability to evaluate the health of the general population. Just the same, mobile applications could be employed in tracking health trends as an early sign of budding health problems. With the use of mobile applications, tracking health and its results, healthcare organizations and federal agencies can document data to create a reference point of trends and statistics to improve research and develop medical practice.
Mobile tech is a flourishing subject in healthcare. It comes with several outstanding implications and many of which are just on the edge of being recognized. This may improve access for patients, concerning health information, improved medication compliance.
About the author: Gabriela is a tech enthusiast, passionate about the mobile industry and gadgets. She’s a technology entrepreneur, co-founder of UnlockUnit.com.