Week 1 Discussion: Digital Technology And Healthcare
There’s no doubt that technology is our future, doesn’t matter what field your in medicine, business, communication, or education, technology is ever evolving. There our so many new apps, I can’t even keep up anymore! When I was at the airport the other day I saw a magazine called Mac Life, and this particular issue was dedicated to the 40 best ios apps that had come out this past year! It really blew my mind a whole magazine about all things apple and apps. I thought to myself, have a fallen that far behind?! I have an apple phone and I’m not even sure I’ve downloaded eight new apps this year! Surely I’m missing out. Being able to monitor our sleep, social interactions, and fitness was interesting to me we can sort of see our life on something like a pie chart and make changes where we need to, and perhaps spend more of our time in healthier ways. I thought the mention of “PATRICIA” was awesome your own personal affective therapist in your pocket, who couldn’t use some motivational feedback, but I especially think its helpful for those enduring a debilitating injury or rehabilitation. What I found fascinating about PATRCIA is that it’s not your standard auto-response inspirational quote but its personal, based on your physiological responses such as heart rate and respirations.
Technology in my opinion has its greatest potential in preventative and maintenance of health. Using technology to prevent strokes can save lives and prevent a lifetime of debilitating injuries. However, one has to wonder how many hours a day is it necessary to wear the electrode belt? There must be a minimum hours a day it must be worn to get a accurate reading right? Is it uncomfortable? Is it bulky? A month is a long time to wear this device and if its heavy or uncomfortable it might not get a lot of wear. Apps like this could help assessment in the future, and it could give the patients more insight into their health and life style. Fitness apps could also help keep patients on track, promoting them to be more active and perhaps eat healthier. There are also apps I’ve seen where you can use your phone as a scanner and scan the bar code on the packages of what you eat, enter quantities, and keep track of daily intake and nutrition.
However, the major problem I see with gathering patient data outside of the clinical setting is its accuracy. Also, how will all of this patient information be organized? Tons of data collected monthly, weekly, daily, hourly on thousands or perhaps millions of patients where will it all go? How will it be stored? And for that fact will it be safe and secure? Now days, on the news we hear about all this information leaking and sites being hacked keeping patient information secure should be a top priority.
Besides a laptop my primary medical doctor uses I don’t think I’ve seen any new technology used at the bedside for patient education however videos and animations would be a perfect tool for patients to view while their bound to a hospital bed. Also, having a link on the hospitals webpage to patient education so in the situation a patient misplaces their educational printouts they still have access to the information.
Lots of new technology is headed our way whether were ready or not, and id like to find that I’m ready and able to use new programs, apps, and devices to help improve patients health.
