Just like marketers collect, analyze and manipulate information gathered from various social media platforms to plan and execute a branding or marketing strategy, people in the healthcare industry use collected and shared data for medical purposes and benefits as well.
Health IT is rapidly developing as a tool to help doctors and patients gather and assess information collected from various sources – including the social network for better diagnostics, treatments, knowledge sharing and for improving health and lifestyle in general. Seeing the potential, investors have channeled over $955 million into healthcare IT.
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Here are three ways health IT is giving the healthcare industry a much needed upgrade:
1. The Internet and Health Portals
The number of people gaining access to the World Wide Web is increasing with each passing day. And likewise, the number of people – or better said patients who use the internet to look up common symptoms, signs and possible treatments to their respective medical conditions too is increasing. Hence saying that the internet is a very useful tool for Health IT is merely restating the obvious.
With a number of websites dedicated to healthcare and medicine, either providing relevant information or forums where doctors and other patients can exchange information and experiences, medical patients just have that many more options to understand their medical conditions properly and look for ways to cure themselves. Of course, to completely exclude a doctor from the equation would be stupid on the grandest level.
Not to mention, search engines can be pretty handy as well. By analyzing health related searches carried out on search engines, search giants like Google have been able to accurately predict medical trends such as flu and Ebola outbreaks. These trends and predictions thus help monitor epidemics on a global scale and at least facilitate the healthcare industry in preparing itself to tackle the situation on a large scale.
2. Medical Databases
Keeping a stack of medical records in the form of files, papers and what-nots is not only space consuming, but also tedious. Storing the same information in technology on the other hand, has become nothing short of a life saver. Maybe not practically, but medical databases have become an effective way of keeping track of patients and disease history for future reference. This obviously helps making diagnostics and suggesting treatments a lot easier and effective especially when the information is shared in between doctors and patients and between multiple medical and healthcare facilities as well.
With a patient’s medical history just a click away, doctors are able to see what the patient had been through in the past and how that may have or has affected his or her current condition. As a result, doctors are well informed and can come up with a better diagnostic for the patient. Medical records if made universally accessible will not only make the task easier for patients traveling or relocating, but would also serve as a basis for comparative case studying and analysis.
3. Health Apps
Smartphones and responsive design have added just that extra bit of fun to Health IT. It is true that healthcare facilities use the social network to connect with patients at any and every possible level – we all love Facebook, but a number of investors are now jumping into the app pool by introducing health-based apps for multiple health and lifestyle purposes.
Health apps are obviously a more personal way for patients (and people in general) to connect with one another and their doctors as well. it serves as a medium to share useful facts and figures with the touch of a finger.
Fitbit is a pedometer that tracks daily sleep and activity and uses social networking and gaming to motivate its users. Apps like Ronastic and Nike+ are designed to help people set and monitor their fitness regimes. There are also chat-based apps dedicated to particular medical conditions that allow patients to share relevant information across chat rooms. The health app industry is one that has really just got started and has tremendous potential to serve both patients and doctors.
Having said all of this, it isn’t hard to conclude that the medical and healthcare industry is benefiting from health information technology. Though there is still a lot more potential in the field that can possibly help save a lot more lives.