As the number of COVID-19 cases increases and social distancing measures remain, telehealth is making an integral contribution to healthcare. You could even say it has become a lifesaver.
A great way to reduce coronavirus spread and promote social distancing, telehealth enables stable patients to stay home while communicating with healthcare providers and receiving virtual medical care. It includes everything from making online appointments to conducting primary care visits through video chat – and is being adopted with greater frequency than ever.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “leveraging telemedicine whenever possible is the best way to protect patients and staff from COVID-19.”
Clearly, telehealth is an important tool that helps protect healthcare professionals and patients alike during these times. Yet even before the recent surge, telehealth visits were changing healthcare relationships for the better.
A January 2019 study published in The American Journal of Managed Care found that telehealth visits provide numerous benefits, including convenience for both the patients and healthcare providers.
The study concluded that virtual visits rated high among most patients, with most saying they would recommend telehealth appointments to family and friends. Patients also said it saved them the time it would take to visit to and from an appointment. Most patients and physicians said communication wasn’t lost through virtual visits.
For healthcare professionals, video visits are more efficient than in-office appointments, allowing them to see more patients each day. Telehealth also gives practices the option to extend hours without staffing an office. And recently, it has allowed healthcare professionals quarantined because of COVID-19 to treat patients remotely.
By Amanda Jerelyn, health sciences tutor, Academist Help.
Almost all innovations are capable of making health maintenance cost-effective and efficient. It modifies the approach used by health professionals for delivering healthcare services. Secondly, it mostly uses applied science to develop a new kind of output and medication. Thirdly, it develops bright businesses exemplary.
According to expert analysis, the health sector has experienced exponential growth and has headed towards innovation at a high pace. It is vital to have a closer look at a few of the most exciting healthcare innovations that engineers and scientists have managed to come up within these years.
Customer Observant
Modernization in the delivery of health management will lead to more productive, more active, and cheaper medicines for this time, which will continuously improve the healthcare system. For instance, less costly and accessible health services will encourage more individuals to engage in their healthcare. This can allow participants to take control of their intimate health management expenses or a lively program.
Importance of Technological Advancements
The goal of improved access to medication, cost-effective treatment, and less medical errors can be achieved with technological advancements. As an exemplification, infix sensors may allow patients to track their condition more efficiently. IT developments can connect numerous atoll of information to health management organization which can significantly improve decision making and timely delivery of care without any delays. Moreover, the probability of duplication of healthcare services also reduced, which results in cost savings for patients and their families.
The Strength Influencing Innovation
There are several players similar to the health indulgent industries, owning a purpose. Such barnstormers have the support and the ability to impact the policies. Hospitals often curse mechanization driven merchandise ground-breaker for the considerable amount of the healthcare department. American Medical Association (AMA) and the trial attorneys, formidable rivals on the problem of medical malpractice, have worked together on legislation to concede consumers who have been refused medication to sue managed care assurance policies. If innovators consider and seek to deal with the diverse desires of the different parties, they can see their attempts thwarted.
There is interesting research in Forbes’ recent article named “How E-Commerce’s Explosive Growth Is Attracting Fraud”. According to the statistics, e-commerce retail sales achieve 209% year-over-year revenue growth. It is expected that this indicator will grow, which means it will seduce fraudsters even more. This is a completely obvious pattern – big money always means a lot of attraction for attackers.
Is there a way to protect your business from these risks? We are sure there are. In this article, we will tell you how eCommerce fraud prevention and detection system work being powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence.
What Is Fraud in e-Commerce?
E-commerce and retail fraud mean any activity aimed at deceiving sellers or buyers in order to seize goods or money. In the e-commerce industry, all fraudulent transactions occur online. As for retail, fraud at the physical point of sale of goods is also possible. AI and ML solutions to encode expertise for detecting fraud in eCommerce and retail can handle both tasks.
What Are the Three Types of Fraud?
In fact, it is possible to identify more types of fraud depending on the nature of the crime, the level of damage, tools for committing fraud, and even unrealized criminal plans. Basically, it is possible to distinguish three main types of fraud.
Mobile Fraud
This is a fairly logical phenomenon – the more users began to use mobile phones for instant transactions, the more scammers thought that these devices might have hidden potential. The infographic below illustrates the current situation with mobile fraud.
Moreover, this is the case when businesses and individuals are equally at risk. Very often, mobile fraud becomes a way of illegally making purchases on behalf of another person.
Identity Theft
Identity Theft is the second type of fraud that is very popular. Who do you think are the most frequent victims of this type of fraud? These are Millennials, the most active users of social networks and the most solvent category of the population at the same time.
The thing is that social networks allow you to make a portrait of a person and collect all the necessary data very easily. It’s not even necessary to hack anything. And comprehensive personal data also easily provides access to e-mail, and other applications, including financial ones.
By Ken Perez, vice president of healthcare policy, Omnicell
Ken Perez
While proper hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, social distancing, testing, and therapeutics are all valid and useful measures in the battle against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, a safe, effective vaccine is the only path to normal. It is the ultimate game-changer. As one reader recently wrote to The Buffalo News, “Without a COVID-19 vaccine, there is no Hollywood ending.”
It certainly won’t be easy. In general, over 90% of vaccine candidates fail, and vaccines usually take several years, not months, to develop. Despite 33 attempts at a vaccine for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which spread worldwide in a few months from China in 2002, no SARS vaccine exists today.
Similarly, for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which started in Jordan in April 2012 and spread to a total of 27 countries, all 13 vaccine candidates to date have failed.
As of this writing, the novel coronavirus has infected 5.6 million persons and caused some 350 thousand deaths across over 200 countries. It is highly transmissible—spread by even asymptomatic individuals—and it is “wily,” as it has mutated over a dozen times. In short, it constitutes an epochal challenge for all of humankind.
Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic about the chances for successful development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
From robotic surgery to telehealth, digital advances are driving innovation in all areas of healthcare, a trend that can be expected to accelerate during and after this era of pandemic-caused isolation.
We see dramatic changes in these areas: (1) Sensors and wearables; (2) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality; (3), 3D printing; (4) AI driving analytics, automation, and robotics and; (5) The rise of chatbot. In fact, we are already experiencing the impact of the coronavirus isolation in some areas, such as telehealth and 3D printing.
On the grand scale, robots have been proven to be more precise than surgeons and AI can diagnose cancers with a success rate of 99%. In 2020 cost pressures –compounded by the coronavirus initiative- and regulatory change will act as the major catalysts for digital health treatments, which have a crucial role to play in delivering effective, fast, and cost-efficient patient care.
For instance, the pandemic isolation combined with digital health advances are helping shift care to be based around people’s homes.
Local care is not just more convenient and less stressful for patients, it also makes financial sense, when you consider the average hospital stay in the US is upwards of $10,000, totaling over $1 trillion annually in hospital services, and that 60 percent of all bankruptcies in the US are related to medical expenses.
The transformation of traditional value systems in healthcare will continue to accelerate as patients increasingly become better-informed health “consumers”. Thanks to digital, the “value pool” is shifting in this industry, resulting in cost savings for patients thanks to better system efficiency. 2020 will also see the introduction of standalone 5G, which will enable the adoption of an almost limitless number of applications involving AI, big data and the IoT. Many healthcare-related high-bandwidth projects will be set free by 5G’s connectivity, bringing therapies from within hospitals into the field.
By Justin Fier, director of cyber intelligence and analytics, Darktrace
Justin Fier
As the healthcare sector struggles against the COVID-19 crisis, working tirelessly to protect staff and patients while struggling with worsening economic realities, cybercriminals around the world are seeing a golden opportunity to attack.
Overwhelming demand, exhausted staff, IT teams pulled in multiple directions, and a critical reliance on technology to treat patients mean that adversaries have never had more opportunity or incentive to attack healthcare organizations.
By locking healthcare providers out of critical systems at this critical time, attackers can force them to pay a ransom to recover access or face adding to the already grim death toll.
Recently, an advisory was jointly issued by CISA and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). This joint alert stemmed from the increase in state-sponsored attacks against organizations connected to COVID-19 research and response. These include pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, government agencies, research institutes, and more.
By Florence Jean, group head of global health business line, Europ Assistance
Florence Jean
The Covid-19 Outbreak has completely upended our daily lives with social distancing measures and stay at home orders forcing most of the global population inside. One group who has been identified as being particularly at risk of infection throughout the crisis is the elderly.
Simultaneously because of the lock down procedures people are becoming more comfortable with using telemedicine solutions; during this outbreak period alone, we saw a 70% increase in the use of our phone and video-based teleconsultation services.
With at risk senior population required to stay inside, Telemedicine may prove to be the solution that can both keep our elderly population safe from this deadly virus and ensure they are still receiving the quality medical attention they need remotely.
With the world’s population growing older at historic levels, the “Silver Wave”, is upon us. This refers to the recent surge in the number of people over the age of 65, an age demographic which is anticipated to encompass more than 30 percent of the Europe’s population and 23 percent of the United States’ population by 2060.
This trend is also developing at concerning pace in Asia, where by 2030 it is expected that the region will house over 60 percent of the worldwide population of people age 65 and older. While this may not sound significant on it’s face, the economic implications alone raise several concerns, including a reduced labor force and strained healthcare systems.
From a senior care perspective, we are starting to see many senior living communities shift their focus towards putting technology first. In fact, the shift over the last three years is exponentially more than all the progress from the last ten years combined.
As we continue to see an increase in the implementation of technology, we’ll also see residents’ quality of life improve because we are enabling them to age in place longer and remain in their preferred care setting.
In actuality, technological advancements and innovation are more likely to come to the senior living industry over any other care setting. Since these types of facilities are largely privately funded, senior living facilities are more likely to adopt these new innovations over those organizations that are funded by the government.
Overall, technology is starting to be more widely implemented to improve senior care by managing resident data more efficiently, all with a primary focus of helping our seniors to maintain the independence, health, and general wellness.
We have officially entered into a New Normal and technology overall will continue to play a larger role within the senior living space. Mobile technology will be even more critical and engaging family in care through the use of family engagement solutions will become foundational.
Leveraging an EHR as an underlying platform to improve overall care quality allows care providers to truly see resident needs and find creative ways to address them.
By taking a comprehensive approach to an EHR, providers in the senior living space can gain insight into the community’s key operating metrics, then adapt and adjust accordingly by regularly tracking clinical outcomes, staffing, and quality indicators.
From a data perspective, more and more senior living communities are recognizing the importance of interoperability. Data being collected shouldn’t just tell us where we are at, it should tell us where we are going by helping us predict potential issues before they happen.
By Amanda Jerelyn, health sciences tutor, 
