In the daily rush of life, we are often more concerned with getting through the day and achieving our goals that we end up neglecting the most important aspect, our health.
As cliche as it may sound, health truly is wealth, and without it, we might not be able to live a fulfilled and successful life. Not paying attention to the needs of our body can lead to some severe damage, especially as we get older in the long run.
While adopting a healthy lifestyle is necessary to stay fit and active, many of us tend not to take the first step. With so many health experts and influencers sharing their tips and tricks along with the best exercise plans, it can get confusing. But don’t let this stop you from making the right lifestyle choices.
To start adopting a healthy lifestyle and stay on track, you need to create a plan to follow every day. Let’s talk about everything you need to know to create a health plan.
Vigorous exercises, sports activities, and prolonged improper posture can sometimes result in bodily pain and injury. This can be a problem as it can further impede activities and hobbies one likes to do most. So, having a physical therapist may help you address the pain you are suffering. These professionals can help patients deal with the symptoms and origin of the physical pain they are experiencing and assist them throughout the process with various techniques and methods.
Technological Prosthetic Robot Arm is Tested by Two Professional Development Engineers in a High Tech Research Laboratory with Modern Futuristic Equipment. Man and Female Compare Data on a Personal Computer.
Over the years, the medical device industry has seen a lot of innovative changes. And, with more technological advancements being made, many companies in the industry have been pushing for more intuitive, user-friendly, and attractive consumer-level designs.
The challenge now is for designers and manufacturers to produce these devices in the least amount of time without violating local and international regulations. With the increasing growth rate of this industry, it’s even more crucial now to avoid making errors and missteps, so you don’t fall behind the competition.
Here are the do’s and don’ts of medical device design and manufacturing.
Do Design With Users In Mind
A medical device is meant to help users resolve certain problems or meet specific needs. Thus, you should focus on the target end users and their needs instead of getting caught up in the goal of creating a unique device. From the initial phase and all throughout the design process, you should always consider the human factors that affect your design. Failing to do so may result in defective devices, and it would be expensive and time-consuming to make significant changes in the latter stages.
To ensure that your target market accepts and uses the device, you should consider these factors in the design process: ease of use, user needs, user scenarios, potential risks, and safety issues. It’s also important to identify residual dangers in using the device early on, so you can promptly find ways to eliminate or manage these risks.
The importance of ease of use should also be stressed. The end users should be able to use the device without having to struggle or having to ask for help every time they need to use it. Medical devices are supposed to aid people and improve their lives, not present them with another problem.
Telemedicine – the practice of providing consultations and medical assistance to patients through video calls – should be a lasting way of administering health care, according to the American Medical Association, particularly for patients with chronic health conditions. It promises to free up doctors’ offices and reduce the amount of time that individuals spend on waiting lists.
From around 2012 onwards, the number of people using telemedicine increased globally, year-on-year. Technology made it possible for patients to connect with their doctors remotely, skipping the need to travel to offices for consultations. However, despite the feasibility of such systems, coverage was patchy, right up until 2020.
Once the pandemic hit, though, things began to change. Social distancing meant that medical practitioners had no choice but to shut their doors and administer patient care online. According to the AMA, COVID-19 changed everything. Early on in the crisis, the Trump administration removed many of the regulatory barriers to telemedicine, freeing up providers. The moves made it easy for patients to pay for their care while remaining safely in their homes.
During the early stages of the pandemic, many health providers and patients saw the flaws with healthcare customer service. Patients engaged in rounds of “phone tag” with their doctors, or they accepted a three or four day wait time to hear back from MyChart messages. Smaller providers with paper records struggled to provide access to information for patients who understandably did not want to visit an office during a health crisis.
Chat, email, and phone channels exploded with patients who wanted to learn more about the new virus. The pandemic accelerated digital change and connectivity, leaving many in healthcare unprepared. They had to implement new technology at scale, including videoconferencing, EHR access and other improvements, all while managing HIPAA compliance. As the pandemic continues into the fall of 2021 and beyond, healthcare providers need to evolve their digital offerings.
They need new technology that isn’t a short-term fix but sets the industry up for a more connected future of more satisfied and healthier patients.
Leveraging Technology for Integrated Healthcare
Many physicians and staff call patients using their mobile phones but would block the caller ID for privacy reasons. However, the patient can’t call the healthcare provider back on this line. It doesn’t enable easy back and forth for setting an appointment or double checking a course of care. This dynamic means a less open patient and provider relationship that lacks a personal touch. With a better relationship, patients often see improved engagement with their provider, leading to improved outcomes, fewer mistakes, or misinterpretations, and less legal exposure for the provider.
The healthcare revenue cycle is an unnecessarily complex tangle of patients, providers, employers, and insurance companies. Patients and other parties are often frustrated with medical claim submission and reimbursement procedures, which can take months to resolve. This has forced a closer look at ways to increase the transparency of payment structures – offering the potential to address long-standing patient concerns while ensuring a more stable revenue source.
One of consumers’ chief concerns is the final cost of care. Over the last two years, many patients have lost their jobs and health insurance, leaving them highly cost-conscious. Patients require more cost predictability as they continue to navigate the financial impact of the pandemic. Insurance eligibility and payment estimation tools enable providers to generate reliable out-of-pocket costs at the time of scheduling. For cost-conscious consumers, this helps drive better-informed care decisions, provides options of payment plans or financing, and is an opportunity for providers to improve a critical patient experience.
Price transparency has been a long-standing concern for consumers, and recently the federal government and states have taken steps to address the problem. The Price Transparency Rule, established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, took effect on January 1, 2019. Still, hospitals reluctant to comply with the rule now face the possibility of a hefty $2 million fine, and with the No Surprises Act set to take effect next year, it’s clear providers must embrace billing transparency, or the government will force them to accept a less-than-ideal option.
It’s staggering to consider the degree to which technology has progressed, even within the past several decades. Hearing aids, for instance, went from clunky, unwieldy boxes clamped to the side of one’s head to sleek, modern hardware equipped with everything from Bluetooth functionality to companion apps. And hearing aids aren’t the only hearing assistance technology to have grown more advanced.
Cochlear implants, too, have improved significantly and are now advanced enough to be beneficial to individuals with asymmetrical hearing loss. Moreover, because the majority of a cochlear implant’s components are housed externally, they can be upgraded with relative ease. Even people who received an implant many years ago can enjoy their benefits to the fullest.
Unsurprisingly, the evolution of hearing assistance tech has had a significant impact on audiology. For one, patients no longer need to visit an audiologist to readjust their device regularly. Instead, they can do so through a smartphone app, tweaking and modifying the settings to their own unique auditory needs.
By Chris Evanguelidi, director, enterprise healthcare market, Redpoint Global.
In a new Harris Poll survey commissioned by Redpoint Global, consumers ranked healthcare near the bottom among several industries in delivering an “exceptional customer experience.” Just 13% regarded their experiences as exceptional, about equal with travel/hospitality but significantly below retail (26%) and financial services (23%).
Interestingly, when asked which industry should be the best at providing such an experience, healthcare polled first in three of four elements of customer experience (CX). More than a quarter of all consumers surveyed expect healthcare should rank first in personalization, consistency and customer understanding. (Only financial services ranked ahead of healthcare in the privacy dimension, 34% to 28%.)
An expectation for a consistently personalized experience in which a healthcare provider or insurer exhibits a personal understanding of a consumer is the core of the healthcare consumerism movement, which is a recognition and affirmation that the healthcare consumer controls an individual healthcare journey. Yet consumers increasingly question why fragmentation along channels, locations and data seems to be the norm.
A face-to-face meeting with a physician may provide an overall positive experience, but for the patient, it is only part of a journey, which may have included research, questions and appointment setting before the doctor visit, and follow up care, prescriptions, payments and further research after the point of care.
When the customer journey is disjointed, it becomes very difficult for any stakeholder in the consumer’s care to have a personal understanding beyond their area of interest. This, in turn, further erodes a seamless experience because the next steps are not optimized based on a unified, up-to-date view of the consumer. Social determinants of health, engagement preferences, behaviors, existing care gaps and other data points need to be presented to payers and providers in real time, at the point of interaction, to deliver the consistent, personalized experience consumers have come to expect.
In the daily rush of life, we are often more concerned with getting through the day and achieving our goals that we end up neglecting the most important aspect, our health. 
