By Karen Smith, head of sales and marketing, MePACS.
Karen Smith
People are living longer and fuller lives thanks to advancements in public health, nutrition, sanitation and medicine in the last 100 years. And now, thanks to innovative technology, there are a number of products available that are allowing people to age at home.
People over the age of 60 areestimated to account for one in six people globally by the year 2030, and by the middle of the century it’ll reach one in every five people. The world is facing an ageing population crisis and that will bring strain on healthcare and aged care facilities.
However, the coronavirus pandemic has shown that there is a significant distrust in the aged-care industry. Recently,an Australian survey showed that only 15% of locals aged between 60 and 80 trust the aged care industry. There has also been a significant increase in people considering in-home aged care services for people between 50 and 70 years old in Australia.
During the pandemic, MePACS has seen a 60% increase in demand for personal alarms and smartwatches for clients. Technology is allowing seniors to live a more independent life at home while continuing to do the things they love without fear.
Living an independent life
Most developed countries are facing an ageing population. In the US,AARP Research found 76% of Americans aged 50 and older would prefer to live at home as they age. In Australia it’s a similar story. ABureau of Statistics 2015 survey found that 94.8% of Australians aged 65 and over are living in households and a quarter of older adults live alone.
While many older adults would prefer to live at home, it’s not always possible especially for those who have limited mobility and find performing regular household tasks difficult. Luckily, technology has improved dramatically so that household tasks can be automated, such as smart fridges that can sense when groceries are running low. There are virtual assistants, such as Google Home or Amazon Echo which can perform tasks using voice commands.
The CE mark we know and recognize today was originally an EC mark, but in 1993, this was replaced with the CE mark we use now, which is found in directive 93/68/EEC. This CE mark is abbreviated from the French ‘Conformité Européene’ and is usually displayed on medical devices or on the packaging of medical devices sold in the European Economic Area (EEA). This CE mark is a form of proof that the medical device meets certain EU requirements.
A CE marked medical device, such as a hearing aid or a pacemaker, indicates that it meets the health, safety and environmental standards of the EU, as well as all EU legislation. CE markings aren’t just used for the member states of the EEA but Turkey and Switzerland also use this certification which is applicable to medical devices regardless of whether manufacturing happened inside or outside of the EEA. Because of the wide usage of the CE marking, it’s important that you as a user understand the different types of CE markings you will encounter.
The CE mark for European Conformity
If a product is intended to be used for medical purposes, is a contraceptive or is used to clean a medical device, it is likely a medical device. This is something that the manufacturer decides at an early stage, and if the product fulfils the criteria in the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) it will be classified as a medical device and receive the CE mark.
In particular, medical devices must meet the general safety and performance requirements of the MDR. This in turn, means that they have to meet the requirements of various ISO and IEC standards for medical devices.
Manufacturers are only allowed to affix the CE mark on a medical device after meeting those requirements. This means that the CE mark tells you as a consumer that the product is safe to use.
By Dr. Donald Voltz and Eric Tran, master of science in microbiology and immunology, School of Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
The COVID-19 virus is ravaging the planet at a scale not seen since the infamous Spanish Flu of the early 1900s, inflicting immense devastation as the U.S. loses more than 200,000 lives and counting.
According to CDC statistics, 94% of patient mortalities associated with COVID-19 were simultaneously suffering from preexisting conditions, leaving a mere 6% of victims with COVID-19 as their sole cause of death. However, while immediate prospects for a mass vaccine might not be until 2021, there is some hope.
The fact that four in ten U.S. adults have two or more chronic conditions indicates that our most vulnerable members of the population are also the ones at the greatest risk of succumbing to the pandemic.
Healthcare providers must pay close attention to patients harboring one of 13 chronic conditions believed to play major roles in COVID-19 mortality, particularly chronic kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes, and COPD.
Rural populations are some of the most vulnerable and must be supervised due to their unique challenges. The CDC indicates 80% of older adults in remote regions have at least one chronic disease with 77% having at least two chronic diseases, significantly increasing COVID-19 mortality rates compared to their urban counterparts.
Health behaviors also play a role in rural patients who have decreased access to healthy food and physical activity while simultaneously suffering high incidences of smoking. These lifestyle choices compound with one another, leading to increased obesity, hypertension, and many other chronic illnesses. Overall, rural patients that fall ill to COVID-19 are more likely to suffer worsened prognosis compared to urban hubs, a problem only bolstered by their inability to properly access healthcare.
Although most individuals who sustain a traumatic brain injury find themselves to be able to return to their normal lives as soon as possible, there are some unfortunate cases that require rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury. Individuals who sustain a brain injury and need long term care must have rehabilitation services that are geared toward maintaining their mental health throughout their recovery process. There is a need for individuals to understand what rehabilitation will entail during this time.
Cognitive Rehabilitation
The first phase of long-term rehabilitation is the phase known as cognitive rehabilitation. This phase addresses issues that can affect the individual’s ability to think critically and problem solve after sustaining an injury. Cognitive rehabilitation involves helping individuals learn how to use their thoughts to deal with the daily demands of life. It is imperative that those who sustain a brain injury be able to manage stress and other negative emotions.
Behavioral Rehabilitation
The second phase of cognitive rehabilitation is known as behavioral rehabilitation. This phase works to improve communication, self-care, and emotional control. When an individual who has suffered a traumatic brain injury learns how to better interact with others, they will be able to increase their ability to function on a daily basis.
Another important aspect of behavioral rehabilitation is physical rehabilitation. Individuals must be able to regain strength and function on a daily basis if they are going to be able to maintain their independence. They will also need to be able to take care of themselves while they are still recovering.
Everyone’s lives eventually get touched by a need for physical therapy. Whether your mom is going through it after a hip replacement surgery, or you have to go through it after a car crash, it’s not easy for anyone. Physical therapy can look completely different based on injury and the patient, but there’s one thing that strings it all together.
It helps people.
If you, or someone you care about, are coming out of surgery, physical therapy may be the only step left to finish healing. Here are all of the ways that it can help and why patients shouldn’t skip it.
Sets goals
Surgery can be scary because it takes away some of our security in ourselves and our bodies. When we lose that control, it’s essential to feel like we can earn it back. Physical therapy gives us attainable goals for things we can achieve or hope for. Although not every series of treatments can guarantee a perfect recovery, the milestones that come with can be good enough to feel success in small steps. These goals are vital to handle well about ourselves.
You could argue that, of all the different ways that technology has brought improvement to the lives of humans across the globe, none is more significant as the benefits to healthcare and medicine. From creating the X-ray machine to the many different surgical practices and personal care advancements, technology has helped increase life expectancy and optimism about the future of healthcare. As we journey into the years ahead, we continue to invent technologies that treat rare diseases and improve the general quality of life.
One significant advancement in technology is the creation of electronic health records (EHRs). The movement towards EHRs has caused a massive evolution in medicine and healthcare delivery, leading to other advances in health diagnosis and treatments. Gone are the days when hospitals relied on contrasting information systems that could not transfer and share patient records. The EHR system has made it possible to connect many systems and allow for faster, efficient, and integrated care.
Another advancement worth mentioning is telehealth or telemedicine. This simply refers to using telecommunications technology to improve healthcare. Whether you are focusing on At Home Companion Care or healthcare for deprived rural areas, patients can use different computers to have virtual meetings with doctors. Another advantage of using telehealth or telemedicine is its cost-effectiveness.
The telehealth technology works well with the right monitoring tools. When patients need to monitor their health from home, they can reduce visits to the doctor’s office and save some money. Today, millions of people use different telehealth technologies and remote health monitoring systems. Health workers and service providers can send needed data to health centers at remote locations. The benefit of this system is that it provides the right tools and methods to treat and monitor patients with chronic health issues regardless of their location.
The patient was prepped and ready on the operating table when the surgeon realized he only had a report of a CT scan and would need the actual images that were taken by another health system to successfully perform the procedure. Normally, this would either delay the surgery or tempt the doctors to try the procedure without all the relevant information.
Luckily for everyone involved, the hospital was a participant of a health information exchange (HIE). Within a few minutes, the surgeon had access to the necessary images through our secure portal and began a successful operation.
Interoperability is critical for planned and unplanned procedures. Today, COVID-19 patients often enter a hospital short of breath in desperate need of emergency attention – yet, as many hospitals work now, that patient is expected to produce their extensive medical record of allergies, conditions, medications, and previous operations while gasping for air.
Although medicine continues to greatly advance, most care providers still dwell in the world of dinosaurs: faxing, printing, burning CD-ROMs, and relying on the patient’s ability to produce medical histories.
A recent report by the National Academy of Medicine found that workflow and inadequate technology usability were major factors contributing to America’s alarming medical staff burnout rate. Customers who use modern network technology greatly benefit from seamless access to patient files that used to lie beyond their health system’s servers, easily communicating between other healthcare providers and patients themselves. Patient care is hard enough today without technical and communication failures.
While the federal government is ushering the medical records system into the 21st century through new interoperability and patient access rules going into effect in 2021, providers would do well to stay ahead of mandated changes before it’s too late.
By Dr. Peter Alperin, vice president of product, Doximity.
It’s 2020 and doctors are doing house calls again. No, we didn’t step back in time; instead, we’ve moved forward. Rather than a doctor knocking on your home with a stethoscope and wooden tongue depressor in tow, today’s house calls require no face-to-face appointments, only a smartphone with an xfinity internet connection. Telemedicine has arrived.
Telemedicine has fast become an important part of our new-normal, owing to its convenience, as well as the growing need to provide continuity of care to patients with chronic conditions in the face of a global pandemic. Moving forward, there will be a significant number of patients where it will not make sense to have them physically come into a doctor’s office when they can get the same level of care by simply doing a video visit with their physician. This, in part, accounts for the meteoric rise of telehealth.
Moreover, public health researchers have long understood that healthcare outcomes are different across various ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Now, many in the medical community are starting to realize that the broad adoption of telemedicine across the system could be a great “equalizer.” This is particularly true for communities that have historically struggled to access care –remote rural or underserved urban communities. There’s great hope that telemedicine could be one development that helps bridge a persistent divide in outcomes, so long as accessing it is easy and inexpensive for patients.
Despite the many positives, most patients have yet to have their first telemedicine visit. And it’s understandable that some may view telemedicine as a challenge, due to either their lack of confidence with technology or not feeling that they have the resources to connect with their doctor remotely. These concerns are valid but the telemedicine options available today make it a simple and reliable option for the broadest possible number of patients.
As a practicing internist, I’ve conducted many telehealth visits, so I’ve seen the potential for telemedicine directly in my own medical practice. I’ve also had the privilege of helping patients with the basics of getting started with their first telehealth appointment.
Here are five things you can do as a patient to help prepare for your first virtual visit with your doctor:
