By Vikram Savkar, vice president and general manager of the medical segment, Wolters Kluwer’s Health Learning, Research and Practice business
The pandemic has shone a critical light on every aspect of the medical ecosystem, revealing which systems were adequate and which were not – in a way that only a global crisis could have done. There has been widespread discussion since the start of the pandemic, concerning changes to public health systems, medical supply chains, medical education, telehealth infrastructure, and more. Less often discussed, but just as disrupted by the pandemic, is medical research communication.
Encompassing peer-reviewed scholarly journals, books, websites, conferences, point-of-care devices, and more, the medical publishing ecosystem is a critical connection point, ensuring that clinicians and healthcare leaders around the world have access to current information about new and emerging treatment approaches.
Looking Beyond the Journal
The pandemic generated needs that went well beyond the comfort zone of this traditional set of tools. Even in the fastest scenario, a journal article once submitted takes months to reach readers and is preceded by additional months of research. This ultimately means that a hypothesis that a clinical researcher is exploring will take half a year or more to progress from concept to readership. In the early months of the pandemic, front-line clinicians could not wait six months to consider therapies for their COVID-19 patients. They needed to act immediately.
In the absence of peer-reviewed research in the early months of the pandemic, clinicians turned to preprint servers, case reports, and even social networks – through which they were able to receive real-time advice from fellow clinicians in other hospitals and other countries on “what was working and what was not.”
Now that a year has passed, there is a substantial body of peer-reviewed, well-established work on COVID-19 in traditional journals, and we can expect to see the global community’s therapeutic and public health approach returning to traditional research-based foundations for the remaining years of pandemic response. But the need that the onset of the pandemic revealed – for much faster and less formal channels of information sharing to sit alongside the more traditional channels – cannot be “put back in the bottle”. The need must be addressed with new systems, new technologies, and new approaches – so that the global community can be better prepared for future crises.
In patients of demographics, the inability to produce and regulate glucose levels sets off a diverse set of chain reactions, ranging from unpredictable fits of fatigue to increased blood pressure to potential kidney failure and, in some acute cases, premature death. For the optimal quality of life, diabetics need access to specialized treatments—like consistent insulin injections—to perform day-to-day tasks and ensure glucose regularity.
Although diabetes is life-threatening when left unattended, this disease is highly treatable with the right resources and tools. People can buy insulin for sale even online. While lifestyle adjustments and constant vigilance are vital to regulation, individuals diagnosed with diabetes also rely on innovative, state-of-the-art medical treatments and devices to achieve a fulfilling life, free of debilitating health complications.
Recent technological advancements have vastly improved the diabetic experience, as medical professionals discover revolutionizing treatments, enhance medication safety, and streamline procedures. As medical scientists and physicians work to gain a firmer grasp on diabetes and its ever-changing complications, diabetics can integrate new-and-improved techniques and treatments, making life with diabetes less burdensome and more manageable.
The main areas of use of biotechnology today are medicine, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and other industries, where BioTech innovations can reduce the cost of production, speed up the development of vaccines, or model the changes of genomel. But, the development in this area is very expensive, and the necessary research requires a lot of time, and all kind of resources.
The cost of BioTech solutions is also influenced by the availability of technological and human resources. Research centers, special devices, and highly qualified specialists are needed for the development, testing, and implementation of advances in biotechnology and healthcare. The more there are, the lower the cost of producing medtech products due to the ability to scale development. At the same time, it is necessary to demo the statistically representative data, which demands the repetition of experiments and very careful documentation of all the experiments’ work circles, which create additional costs.
It is necessary to increase capacity in research centers through the purchase of modern and productive equipment to reduce the cost of technology. Also, other ways are needed to modernize production facilities, which will help to speed up the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle. It should be borne in mind that the equipment itself will not help to process and structure huge amounts of data. As one of the way to optimization, artificial intelligence integration can work nowadays. They take the burden off specialists, dismissing the routine work, and in some ways can structurize the documentation flow and research data storage.
Examples of the use of AI and ML in biotechnology
Scientists from Russia and Belarus have developed a special substrate for efficient stem cell growth. This substrate can be used to develop new materials and technologies in the field of regenerative medicine.
According to the representative of the research group, such substrates can be created based on bacterial cellulose, which is produced by the bacteria Acetobacteraceae bacteria, and which is modified with cerium oxide nanoparticles, which give it unique bioactivity and provide accelerated division of stem cells on its surface, which is the main tool of regenerative medicine.
These cells can self-renew, divide through mitosis and differentiate into specialized cells, that is, turn into cells of various organs and tissues. The researchers used special fluorescent stem cells from transgenic mice with a mutation that gives a green glow to all cells in the body. This made it possible to visualize stem cells on a substrate and analyze the process of their accelerated division.
The healthcare sector is currently undergoing many developments that create new challenges for both large and small medical companies. Healthcare is one of the most sensitive sectors directly linked with people of all walks of life. Thus, the challenges it faces in this new economy require urgent solutions to accommodate those who need it.
Although innovations promise to permanently alter and develop businesses of the future, including healthcare services, their progress won’t be drastic and will take time before they reach their full potential. Recent COVID-19 patterns indicate that demand for care will increase even more in the coming days. Towards 2021 and beyond, the healthcare sector will face more critical challenges they should watch out for. Here are some of them:
Challenge In Data Integration
One of the reasons for this challenge is the lack of a standard data format. Healthcare organizations have collected many data formats throughout the years, and some are incompatible with systems and other data.
Moreover, data privacy and data sharing concerns can limit effective data integration in healthcare systems and facilities. Some healthcare companies even have inadequate knowledge of privacy and privacy legislation. This leads to the lack of a comprehensive strategy for data processing.
In most cases, the people who handle data collection are not the same people who require and utilize the data. In the data transfer, important information may be overlooked; and data ownership may become uncertain and unrecognizable.
Therefore, data must be safeguarded and shared under certain situations, against unlawful access and manipulation. It may be challenging to balance these two interests but healthcare businesses should aim to strike a balance and overcome the challenges in data integration. Data privacy and cybersecurity issues should also be dealt with to prevent more severe issues from happening in the future.
Rising Healthcare Costs
Increasing healthcare costs has an immediate effect on healthcare businesses’ revenues. Higher healthcare costs deter people from lab testing to regular post-visits that eventually lead to poor results among sick patients.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, telehealth has emerged as an invaluable part of care delivery. And by all indications, virtual care is here to stay even after the threat of COVID-19 passes — in large part because of consumer demand. In a report by Qualtrics commissioned by Zoom, 61% of respondents in the U.S. who have used video for healthcare said they plan to attend healthcare appointments both virtually and in person in the future.
The key elements are choice and competition. Consumers want to be able to choose how and where they receive care — and that may include retail and direct-to-consumer solutions or their primary care provider. Sometimes an in-person appointment may be preferred or required, and other times, patients want to save time and money by using high-quality telehealth options.
As more healthcare organizations look beyond the pandemic to building long-term telehealth and virtual care solutions, reliability, consistency, and quality are key to driving adoption, building trust, and improving the patient experience. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Find a solution that integrates into your workflows
When the right technology meets the right application, it becomes nearly invisible to end users. That’s what providers and patients want: a telehealth solution that “just works” and feels as comfortable and intuitive as something they’ve been using for years. The ability to integrate and customize plays a key role in creating that experience.
During the pandemic, I met with many healthcare organizations who stressed that they need their telehealth solution to live in the workflows they use every day.
If your telehealth solution doesn’t sit comfortably in your workflows, it could lead to a variety of issues. If providers need to switch between multiple platforms in their day-to-day work, it could potentially increase time spent on administrative tasks, limit time with patients, and lead to missed appointments and lost revenue. Administrators may find that a parallel workflow duplicates efforts and costs, while an integrated solution could streamline processes and cut down on inefficient spending.
Look for a telehealth solution that has the ability to integrate with your EHR or HIT system, or allows for integration with open platforms through APIs, the latter of which provides flexibility and customization opportunities. A seamless integration enables providers to focus on practicing medicine without fiddling with controls or toggling between platforms.
Wolters Kluwer, Health announces the release of EmmiEducate to improve alignment between patients and their care teams. With educational content tailored to a variety of learning and reading styles, and interoperability across disparate systems and access points, EmmiEducate gives providers the ability to easily support their patients’ information needs within their workflow, delivering easy-to-understand educational materials that mirror the guidance provided to patients during the clinical encounter.
Meeting patients where they are
EmmiEducate aids the expansion of virtual care delivery and helps providers reduce health inequities by more effectively reaching diverse populations through multiple touch points and modalities. EmmiEducate features hundreds of compelling videos, more than 8,000 leaflets in up to 20 languages, and presentation of educational materials at a fifth- to seventh-grade reading level, helping care teams provide content to patients in ways they can better understand and act on.
“How patient education is developed and shared directly impacts whether or not it will be used. Done right, educational touchpoints can improve patient understanding and adherence to their treatment plan, enhance the overall care experience, and build organizational affinity,” said Jason Burum, general manager, healthcare provider segment, clinical effectiveness, at Wolters Kluwer, Health. “By extending clinical decision support to patients, EmmiEducate aligns healthcare stakeholders in a manner that is convenient and highly effective for improving outcomes.”
Hospital-acquired infections are a challenge to clinicians as they increase the mortality and morbidity rate. Sources of infections in hospitals include pathogens from patients, inanimate environments, and medical personnel. In any healthcare delivery setting, infection control and prevention standard precautions should be taken into account. It is everyone’s responsibility to exercise the following tips to prevent exposure and contamination in hospitals. This way, they can avoid causing unnecessary suffering and pain to patients and their loved ones.
Thorough cleaning
Regular cleaning of surfaces in the hospital is among the common practices that ensure hygiene is maintained. Many people visit the hospital daily, including patients, medics, suppliers, or family members visiting their loved ones. Everyone comes from different settings where there are high chances of exposure to germs and environmental elements like dirt and dust. These are among the leading causes of infection in hospitals.
Every hospital must hire cleaning services to ensure that every surface is free of dirt. Provide clean water, detergent, and equipment to make cleaning efficient and fast. Thorough cleaning eliminates over 90% of microorganisms and bacteria by suspending them in the cleaning fluid and removing them from the surfaces.
Hand hygiene
Healthcare workers come into contact with many patients and hospital equipment as they go about their duties. They are, therefore, the most frequent drive for nosocomial infections, and hand hygiene is an ideal preventive measure. Hand hygiene involves disinfection and regular hand washing. Washing hands thoroughly with running water and soap eliminates over 90% of most or all of the superficial and flora contaminants.
When your hands are dirty, use antimicrobial soap for hand-washing to reduce transient flora, but when you come into contact with an infected patient, use medicated soap or an alcohol-based hand-disinfectant. During an operation, many gloves tear. Therefore, disinfect your hands with a long-acting disinfectant before wearing gloves.
Isolation of infected patients
Patients with nosocomial infections should be kept in isolation as a first essential measure. There are different kinds of isolation depending on the extent of risk of infection. For extremely infectious diseases, such as diphtheria and hemorrhagic fever, isolation measures are stringent, while infectious diarrhea and less-infectious respiratory infections aren’t as stringent.
Since isolation is a labor-intensive and expensive process for healthcare workers and patients, it should be adapted to causative agents and disease severity. Practice standard precautions of isolation by wearing protective equipment and keeping patients in private rooms away from other patients. Also, minimize interaction with isolated patients by ensuring they are tended to by a few medical personnel and hospital staff.
BLACK+DECKER launches BLACK+DECKER Health – a new product category within the BLACK+DECKER brand that will be dedicated to providing health and wellness solutions direct-to-consumers. As part of this announcement, the company has introduced goVia, a new product line of emergency response systems (PERS) designed to promote confident mobility for active older Americans.
“For more than 110 years, BLACK+DECKER has been a trusted manufacturer of power tools and products for the home,” said Sean O’Brien, product director, BLACK+DECKER Health. “Now, as part of BLACK+DECKER Health, goVia will help provide an extra layer of protection at home and on-the-go to create a world in which active older Americans can be more confident, maintain their lifestyle, and age in place.”
Each product in the goVia line of personal emergency response systems features 24/7 monitoring with a paid monthly subscription powered by Medical Guardian, a leading provider of innovative, connected care solutions for older adults and caregivers which will connect users to trained emergency operators should they need any assistance.
