Empower Patients and Doctors
By Jared Jacobs, Global SEO Strategist & Consultant at Dell
Healthcare professionals tend to be mobile. The job often demands it. Whether they are treating patients in different parts of the hospital or working with people in remote locations, they need to have the freedom to work whenever and wherever their skills are in demand.
To address this need, many mobile solutions are changing the way patients, doctors, and other healthcare providers are interacting with each other and the huge volume of medical and diagnostic data that accumulates every day. These new developments are increasing accessibility, efficiency, and accuracy. They are saving facilities millions of dollars and empowering many patients to take control of their own health.
Mobile Tools
Patients, through their own mobile devices, can take advantage of calorie counters to watch their eating habits, prescription reminders to ensure they get the necessary medication, and appointment notices to remind them of important meetings with healthcare providers.
These tools can also connect patients with medical references, provide opportunities to meet and chat with others who share their conditions, and help them find the best physician or hospital to address their particular needs. These may seem like simple things, but they can empower anyone to take more control over their own health. This is particularly important for patients who live in remote areas and don’t normally have immediate access to qualified health care.
Medical professionals can also take advantage of this kind of mobile technology to proactively address medical conditions and provide better treatment, more accurate diagnoses, and monitoring that allows near real-time response. Nurses and doctors can quickly access the appropriate and necessary information for their patients to provide better treatment, and other health workers can just as easily access a database of information to learn more about immunizations and how drugs interact with each other.
These mobile tools have opened up a wide range of possibilities for individuals to take advantage of remote monitoring devices, streamlined applications, and a variety of other sensors and resources so they can take more responsibility for their own health.
Enhanced Productivity
Different healthcare providers will employ mobile technology differently, but the most common uses are generally meant to help enhance productivity by allowing users to access or create data on the move. Through timely communications, easier collaboration, and immediate access, the entire organization can run more efficiently and provide better service. These enhancements often come through:
- EHR Access – The shift to electronic health records has been difficult for many organizations, but the payoff has been worth it. These mobile tools provide fast access to patient notes, test results, and any immediate concerns.
- Medical calculators – Quickly determine the right drug dosages or work through other formulae based on the patient’s needs.
- Detailed references – Everything from textbooks to the most recent literature are only seconds away. Both doctors and patients can use this kind of information from any location.
- Better collaboration – Doctors can collaborate remotely, at any time, to exchange information, share observations, and make recommendations based on the most current patient information.
- Pharmaceutical accuracy – Healthcare providers can monitor dosages and times to make sure remote customers are properly treated. This will help make sure that the medications are taken according to the prescribed recommendations.
There is an increasing demand from doctors and other professionals for medical applications that let them document and retrieve patient information at the point of care. Whether it’s through voice-activated dictation/transcription or a range of remote documentation tools, the industry is pushing toward more mobile solutions.
Managing Information
As healthcare providers begin using these tools to document their activities they will be creating more data than ever before. This has to be captured, organized, and archived so it won’t get lost in the ever increasing volume of information. When it’s done right, all this mobile care information can affect almost every part of an organization, including the hospital’s evaluation system, discharging process, and more.
Mobile medical solutions offer simple ways to employ remote monitoring devices, sensors, and reference materials to healthcare providers and patients. It is also creating an opportunity to increase efficiency and lower costs, which is driving further development. There are a lot of avenues available, now, for providers to really improve their offerings and results.
About the Author: Jared Jacobs has professional and personal interests in technology. As an employee of Dell, he has to stay up to date on the latest innovations in large enterprise solutions and consumer electronics buying trends. Personally, he loves making additions to his media rooms and experimenting with surround sound equipment.