It’s not a secret that heart diseases account for more than one third of deaths all over the world. This year, World Heart Day’s theme is harnessing the power of digital health. Digital influence in health care has been there for long. Digital technologies are already transforming healthcare, from the use of drones to deliver blood products and other medical supplies, to the use of artificial intelligence to give paraplegic patients improved mobility and develop new medicines.
But it has made a quantum leap since the advent of Covid-19. There are several modalities or situations where digital technology can be implemented in our daily life. Some of the are:
Digital health record
When a patient gets an ECG, a scan report, a blood lipid profile or blood sugar, it is important that he/she scans it and keeps it in his/her mail as a separate folder in a computer or phone. This data should be readily accessible and also should contain information regarding allergy to medications or side-effect of medications or drug interactions. Medical care is a continuum so much so that as the doctor sees the patient it is important to know the background and the past history of all the illness. If a summary is digitally available with the patient, or if that information can be made available in a very short period of time, then that is going to deliver better safer and faster health care.
Teleconsultation
The term telemedicine or teleconsultation was in vogue for quite some time, but it was only in March 2020 that government legalized telemedicine. More than 50% of physical hospital visits can now be avoided by telemedicine. Just for checking blood pressure or blood sugar or adjusting insulin levels or for getting a medication for high cholesterol one need not go to the hospital and wait for the doctor from morning to evening. This practice would put a check on waste of resources, time and resultant physical and psychological stress. We have online payment systems too. This makes life easier for both doctor as well as the patient and the net total medical expenses definitely would come down.
E-pharmacy
We are now able to get practically any medicines at much subsidized cost from anywhere in the country, as this is made possible by few e-pharmacies who are doing commendable service.
Wearables and Apps for monitoring health activities
A number of health apps are available in Play Store or Apple store for tracking the number of steps we take per day, the intake of calories, water etc. It is very well known that if we can do something closer 7000 steps for day it reduces incidence of heart disease and diabetes. There are numerous fitness apps to pick and choose from to embark upon a healthier life style if one is motivated to follow them.
Home Digital devices
Nowadays we have a variety of digital appliances at home to check blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, O2 saturation, etc.
Remote Monitoring
Many healthcare organisations have embarked on means and methods for continuous remote monitoring of patients especially who are bedridden at home and also patients who are in the ICU especially in the step-down care where they can be monitored from a remote location.
Delivery of medicines by drones
This is a new thing which is catching up as medicines usually carry less weight so that drones can be used to deliver them to different places. This is going to be much useful, recently we have heard in the news that if a person has a cardiac arrest medicine can be delivered on site before even the paramedics arrive
The pandemic has illustrated that health is not a luxury; it’s the cornerstone of social and economic development and of global health security. It is in fact, an opportunity to redesign the world — to make it healthier, safer and more inclusive.
