A weight loss journey can be a tough one, especially when you’re trying it for the first time and need access to a lot of support and information regarding how to do so successfully. You may have various options out there including weight loss surgery, doing gym, taking weight loss supplements, exercising, and different types of diets.
Access to Online Fitness Programs
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of the online world, and namely the easy and free access to online fitness information and fitness videos. During a time when you’re unable to visit the gym, online fitness programs are great ways to maintain a healthy exercise program, no matter where you are — including when working out at home.
Search engines mean you can use very specific search terms for the sort of online fitness content you want to view, whether it’s cardio exercises, yoga or a full-body workout.
Easier Ways to Find Healthy Recipes
Whether it’s accessing free recipes online via nutrition websites, or easily ordering new recipe books to be delivered straight to your home, technology means you can now have a variety of new flavors, recipes and cooking ideas right at your fingertips. This means you can completely tailor your searches for what you’re looking for in regard to your diet and fitness plan. Whether it’s recipes to help you lose weight, recipes to help build muscle and more, there is plenty of helpful information to be found online.
According to survey data from the “2020 Cox Consumer Pulse on COVID-19 and Telehealth,” only 28% of consumers reported their primary care doctor offered remote services before coronavirus. But after the pandemic started, that number quickly grew to 68%, and continues to climb. It’s the old quote “necessity is the mother of invention,” where creative efforts come about to solve a pressing need. The pandemic is the “great accelerator” for transformative change, whether it’s ecommerce, remote work, or telehealth services.
The underlying benefits of expanded telehealth are driving its broader acceptance, a trend that will continue past the pandemic:
Doctors can see more patients over video compared to in-person. There’s no need for them to move from room to room or potentially between floors of a hospital. They can have more time to meet patients, review treatment options, and present the best care regimens.
Telehealth can reduce costs for both patients and providers. For example, a telehealth program in Houston dropped ER visits by 6.7 percent, which resulted in more than $2,000 in savings for the system for each incidence. Patients also eliminate commute times and are less likely to need time off work for telehealth appointments.
Telemedicine improves access to care, which is vital during COVID-19 and provides long-term benefits for disabled patients, rural, and older patients.
Preventive care is easier through telemedicine, and this type of care can produce better health outcomes.
The Industry Challenges Remain
The first barrier to telehealth was adoption. Would patients embrace remote visits? Would they see the value and results they desired through virtual means? With COVID-19, that barrier has gone by the wayside, as it’s now a necessity, and soon will become a norm.
For healthcare providers, there’s still some roadblocks for widespread telehealth usage. Data security is always a concern, with virtual video calls bringing on fresh worries about HIPAA compliance and information sharing. When a hospital or care center offers a new kind of service, there’s issues about how that fits into the overall IT apparatus. There’s little uniformity in the software structures of these organizations, so there’s a lot of work on the backend that needs to happen to accommodate a new model like telehealth. It’s more involved than launching a Zoom. It requires systems to talk to each other, from EHR platforms to insurance check systems.
Almost every day, a news story breaks about a cyberattack hitting a healthcare facility. Healthcare is one of the most highly targeted sectors, and hacks cost the industry $4 billion in 2019.
It’s challenging to stay ahead of malicious actors, and since healthcare is such an attractive target, leaders in this field need to be especially alert. IT teams must protect the vulnerable internal systems safeguarding patient data without falling victim to costly ransomware, for example.
Modern hackers know the most vulnerable parts of enterprise systems. That puts medical centers at a disadvantage because they are susceptible to frequent, sustained attacks. Many of these facilities also lack adequate incident response protocols, and they don’t have enough capital in their budgets to replace legacy software and devices. But with a few simple, smart steps, facilities can still significantly uplevel the protection of patient data.
Step one is understanding all the different methods cybercriminals employ when breaching health systems. Some infiltrate clinical labs by exposing vulnerabilities on their websites, while others exploit lax server protections. Employee email accounts are also a common offender since unauthorized third parties can access patient information through phishing.
One worrisome aspect is how many data breaches are the result of internal negligence. Unencrypted laptops, smartphones, and flash drives are an all-you-can-eat buffet for cybercriminals when forgotten and left exposed.
In particular, there’s one standard device that isn’t part of most health systems’ cybersecurity focus, though it should be: the Multi-Function Printer (MFP), which is an easy target because they’re often overlooked, and because so many vital documents flow through these workflow hubs. Keeping such a large volume of data out in the open is an enormous security risk.
Although we often think of medical technological devices as scientific tools to track progress and improve well-being, a few also satisfy our burning curiosity. A couple, for example, may simply want to know whether an expected child will be a boy or a girl and what their child will look like.
While this will have no bearing on the health of the mother or child, it may have some practical value, such as deciding whether to paint the nursery blue or pink. In short, the primary benefit of learning about the gender and appearance of a child is to satisfy curiosity.
Interestingly enough if you’re expecting a baby and asking yourself “What will my baby look like?” science can now do more than ever to teach you about your child such as informing you what your child’s physical characteristics may look like in the future.
While an estimated 45% of adults snore occasionally, snoring cannot be described as normal. It is a problem that can affect you in many ways. The severity and health implications of snoring vary significantly. Loud snoring that is accompanied by daytime fatigue is referred to as sleep apnea. This is a medical condition that can be treated.
There are several remedies for snoring and sleep apnea. Effectiveness also varies greatly. However, some of the most effective solutions are achieved with technology. Here, we will briefly discuss five ways to treat snoring and sleep apnea with technology.
Whether you work as a physician or epidemiologist, finding work within the healthcare sector can be difficult, especially when so many talented individuals are searching for work at the same time. Therefore, it is important that you make use of all available resources in order to put your best foot forward when applying for a new position.
After all, you have to demonstrate to the potential employer that you are the best choice for the job, and may be facing tough competition from other prospective candidates.
With that in mind, here are three things you should always remember when applying for a job!
Your resume serves as your employer’s first introduction to you. Therefore, it is essential that you make a good impression. Too often, resumes are disregarded due to a simple lack of professionalism and care (i.e. poor spelling and grammar), so ensure your CV is clean, presentable, and free of any errors.
You should also ensure that your CV is focused – don’t provide any surplus information that is not relevant to your chosen job, or does not demonstrate necessary transferable skills. Remember, you only have a short amount of time to capture their interest, so keep the information brief, but enticing.
Sometimes, a job offer will fall into your lap unexpectedly. However, most of the time, especially when searching for your dream job, you will have to put the hard work in yourself – sending of application after application in the hope that you catch someone’s attention.
However, there are plenty of resources, such as PracticeMatch that can help make the process a little easier. Practice Match helps healthcare companies find help by providing them with the appropriate tools they need to source, recruit, and retain healthcare practitioners within their company. If you’re looking for work, you can list your resume on their platform and wait for potential employers to contact you. In the last month, they’ve secured 368,881 candidate matches.
By Daniel Frey, vice president of business development and co-founder, FieldMed.
Daniel Frey
Not every visit with a medical provider needs to happen in person. Remote patient monitoring allows for patient interaction and data collection outside of a traditional medical setting.
Through a mixture of technologies, such as health sensors, applications and video conferencing, remote patient monitoring allows healthcare professionals to streamline patient care, which is why it has become an integral part of community health programs. Remote patient monitoring helps medical professionals overcome barriers like distance, patient engagement and lost revenue that have long impacted their work.
Five Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring
Also known as “telehealth monitoring,” remote patient monitoring has many benefits, including improved access to medical care providers, reduced drain on the healthcare system, better patient outcomes, patient empowerment and accountability, and increased revenue.
Improved Access To Medical Care Providers
Remote patient monitoring brings medical professionals to a patient — even if they’re located hundreds of miles apart. In other words, distance is no longer a factor in a patient’s treatment.
Under the community health program model, participating medical service providers from all disciplines are brought together to respond to patient needs. If monitoring mechanisms indicate a change in a patient’s condition, the appropriate healthcare professional responds to their case. This reduces the number of stops on a patient’s care journey to connect with the right care provider.
Reduced Drain On the Healthcare System
Remote patient monitoring keeps patients in their homes while receiving medical care. This is extremely important for those with compromised immunity or those who are in the beginning stages of recuperating from surgery. Their chances of contracting an infection from another person — be it a doctor, nurse, or patient — are eliminated.
Telehealth monitoring also stops unnecessary and costly trips to emergency rooms. Patients experiencing non-emergency conditions are able to skip the trip to an ER. Instead, they connect with an appropriately qualified medical professional for evaluation and care, leaving ER staff ready for true emergencies.
By Ashley Walsh, senior director of client services, LeanTaaS.
Ashley Walsh
Elective surgeries were hit hard during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, 70% of elective surgeries in the country were put on hold to free up staff and resources to care for those infected with the virus. While putting elective surgeries on hold was a necessary precaution as most facilities navigated the uncertainty, patients with scheduled procedures had their care disrupted.
Now, as multiple waves continue to afflict the country and as we head into the flu season, hospitals have been actively seeking ways to build agility into their operating room capacity and better handle the elective case fluctuations.
Operating rooms are the economic backbone of a hospital, frequently generating 50% or more revenue for the institution. In fact, a single block of operating room time can generate $50K to $100K or more in net revenue per day, so when it comes to allocating time, every minute is sacred. Despite the unknowns, hospitals that are able to manage optimal surgical capacity despite the volume reductions followed by an influx of backlogged elective cases by having access to the right information and by adapting strategies that make the strongest impact. Let’s dive in.
Get ahead of seasonal and potential patient volume fluctuations
As a first step, providers should ensure that surgical case information is available that illustrates how many elective surgeries had to be pushed or rescheduled as well as how they have historically done during the flu season. The combination of this information will help predict the upcoming winter.
Although there are online tools available to pull these insights, it’s also important to lean on the skills of data science teams to help analyze this vital information. Here are a few important data points providers should have on file to make informed decisions during these uncertain times:
baseline monthly surgery volume before COVID-19 and the percentage of baseline cases during the pandemic;
the volume of new cases that you anticipate based on COVID-19 (e.g., surgeries resulting from car accidents have likely decreased because of fewer cars on the road);
the volume of cases you expect to lose based on people losing their jobs and/or health insurance; and
historical seasonal fluctuations, particularly during flu season.
Calculate actual surgical capacity
Once you have the project stats on hand, the next step is to consider potential constraints in terms of staffing and available beds in order to calculate true surgical capacity. While doing so, it’s important to consider potential options and workarounds that may be available to expand capacity, whether that be opening up additional operating rooms, staying open for longer hours, having weekend hours and/or even redirecting some procedures to other types of rooms, when possible.
