Apr 16
2020
The Digitalization of Healthcare: Improving the Outlook of The Industry
By Andriana Moskovska, content curator and contributor, Legaljobsite.net.
With every technological advancement, we’re working toward a mostly digitized healthcare system. And, if the current results are anything to go by, the future is bound to be an exciting one. That said, though, we’ve still got a long way to go.
Healthcare is slowly embracing AI and other technologies to improve services to clients. Six out of 10 healthcare companies already use some form of internet of things (IoT).
We could do better when it comes to incorporating AI, but at least we’re making some progress. In this post, we’ll look at how higher levels of digitization will improve the healthcare industry.
More Digitization Means More Personalized Service
It seems paradoxical, but our current drive toward better efficiency has ignored the human aspect. Doctors today receive a lot of information, most of it digital. Their concern is that by needing to analyze these reams of data, they’ve got less time to deal with their patients.
Digital measurement standards being applied often leave doctors frustrated. They feel that they have to work toward standards that have little relation to the overall quality of work.
Artificial intelligence could change that. Not only can AI speed the diagnosis of conditions, but it can also provide a more rounded analysis of a doctor’s performance. AI can assess a range of factors quickly and easily.
Using AI can make it possible to assess how rules affect doctors at the ground level properly. That could lead to more rules that make sense once implemented, which, in turn, could lead to the scrapping of onerous regulations that get in the way of successful patient outcomes.
Digitization Can Fill Healthcare Data Gaps
If we look at the way that healthcare systems collect data, we see huge gaps. Most of the time, data is only collected when patients interact with the system. That is when they’re ill and need to see a doctor. This leads to a system of reactive treatments.
A genuinely useful healthcare system, though, should be able to predict potential health risks, give patients advice on how to manage those risks, and to collect as much data as possible when the person is feeling well.
We’ve had a range of monitoring tools for some years now. Fitbits, home blood pressure checkers, daily blood glucose monitoring kits are all examples of monitoring tools most of us have access to. Many of these tools can now be connected online. That leaves us with a wide range of options that can give our healthcare system a far more complete picture of our health.
Your Fitbit, for example, logs how many steps you walk on any given day. Your blood pressure kit can point out times when your blood pressure is particularly high.
Information that the machines can’t provide, such as how much food you ate, or how you’re feeling, could be entered into an app built for the purpose.