Why are patients safer with digital health solutions?
With various new digital health platforms emerging to guarantee the timely and efficient delivery of healthcare, the pandemic was able to create a new scenario for the usage of digital health solutions. Patient safety was also improved as a result of the adoption and use of digital health solutions, which came as a boon for sicker patients, lack of transportation, and lack of access to in-person consultations during the pandemic. These factors helped millions of people get medical care during a crisis.
In times of extreme vulnerability and crisis, creative ideas have often come to fruition as solutions. These treatments, like those found for tetanus and typhoid, ultimately had a positive impact on the world. The COVID-19 pandemic was no different. Post-pandemic, we saw a lot of changes in how the healthcare sector worked.
Even while it had a terrible effect on everyone and every industry, the pressure it placed on healthcare and the medical sector as a whole was unparalleled. This in turn had an impact on how well patients received healthcare. The industry struggled to provide the growing number of pandemic-affected patients with sustained assistance. The three most typical difficulties experienced by all individuals who directly helped patients in wards and ICUs were a lack of resources, the need to perform one's duties, and also maintaining one's own health safety.
However, this huge obstacle opened the door for technologically supported digital health solutions. This is how:
Prescriptions have always been written down on paper, according to most medical practitioners. The pandemic, however, compelled them to abandon this practise and adopt its digital replacements as a means of reducing pen-and-paper interaction and infection transmission.
For quicker healthcare operations and to provide digital prescriptions and medication with little to no human intervention and almost zero errors, the majority of good healthcare players introduced software like EMRs (Electronic medical records), COWs (Computers on Wheel-for wards and ICU rounds), CPOEs (Computerized Physician Order Entry), and HMISs (Hospital Management Information Systems).
It takes more than 8 years, including 1-4 years of trial, for a vaccination to be perfected and finalized. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, increased the pressure on scientists and threatened human life, which sped up the development of the vaccine and ultimately saved millions of lives.
Additionally, the pandemic saw a rise in evaluation, diagnostic, and treatment protocols supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Major healthcare organisations all over the world have adopted digital health solutions, which have enabled millions of clinicians to make decisions more quickly and accurately.
Al helped to make it feasible for collecting and organising data about the patient’s clinical history, physical assessment, imaging, drug dosing, investigations, and diagnosis, as well as advising treatments based on the most recent recommendations and guidelines.
Post-pandemic, the practitioners now have the freedom to remotely monitor the patient’s situation by adhering to compliance and solely employing remote communication technologies, such as FaceTime, Messenger, and Skype to serve them. The use of digital tools to monitor patients' health allowed for routine care and remote decision-making when lockdown caused certain limitations.
Smartphone and software innovations have made it possible for patients to feel confident and in charge of their own treatment. Patient information is obtained outside of conventional healthcare settings to fill the gap and assist patients outside of traditional healthcare methods. The improvement of the interaction between patients and their general practitioners is made possible by this constant flow of data that is generated in real-time, which helps to decrease the number of hospital visits.
Healthcare organisations will now be looking ahead and establishing strong digital health solutions that are geared toward more disruption. The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic may be over. Virtual care offered practitioners an anchor to anticipate and attend to the patient's needs during a time when lockdown limitations made it difficult for them to see their doctors. Patients will continue to prefer a contactless healthcare system as the post-pandemic world takes shape because they expect quicker, easier, and safer experiences.
