The world keeps changing and technology is one of the top reasons why. It is embedded in all spheres of life and it is not going to stop progressing anytime soon. Change can be scary, but it’s necessary. Just imagine if you heard about hiring a SEO company back in the 80s. It would freak you out probably because humanity didn’t understand the technology behind those concepts.
The point is, sometimes when change is happening it looks scary and questionable, but seen in retrospect it’s something that created so many opportunities. New technologies and techniques come into the world, and the whole consumer behavior is changing along with all the companies and the workforce.
Advancement didn’t avoid the healthcare sector and there are many ways in which we all have a better healthcare system because of technology.
In this article, we will visit 10 ways in which technology changed or is changing the healthcare sector for the better.
Health records in electronic form
Let’s start with the basics. Something as simple as transferring the health records from an analog to a digital form made tremendous improvement in the whole healthcare system. In the past, records could be lost, misplaced, or even destroyed by some unfortunate event.
Today, the records are almost all over the world in an electronic form. This provides many advantages to the sector like for example:
- Fast and efficient access to any records
- Keeping sensitive information safe and secure
- Keeping the records private, and out of reach to irrelevant people
- Keeping patient information up to date and complete
- Prevention of errors caused by handwriting, misplaced, or missing documents
Using electronic forms makes the healthcare industry do its job much more efficiently and lower the potential errors cause by faulty documentation.
Higher connectivity among doctors
All of the vast digital platforms make it much easier to keep connected and communicating within the whole healthcare system. It’s now easier than ever to share information, check important things, or work on transparency. There are a lot of new apps flooding the healthcare system where physicians can post recent findings and initiate communication, reducing the time needed to ask colleagues for an opinion. This makes the community of physicians work more efficiently, and learn from the others’ experiences.
Computer’s inputs on decisions
Computers are a huge part of our lives and they get more and more sophisticated with time. They are of immense value to any sector, and they are in many ways aiding medical professionals too. In the latest times, computers even provide input of certain medical decisions like X-rays or other diagnostics helping physicians a lot. This also applies in cases where new drugs are being developed or choosing the best route for treatment for some patients.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is very advanced and it’s just the right help that the healthcare systems need. This type of technology assists the medical workers in suggesting detailed treatment plans, assisting with keeping medical records, and even creating drugs in a more effective way. An example that is one of the most recent ones is now AI was implemented to look through all the existing medications so far and to determine which ones can be improved and redesigned to cure the Ebola virus. AI found two medicines that can potentially lessen the virulence of the Ebola virus.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is an extremely helpful feature in any sector, and that’s the case too with the healthcare sector. By having all the data on a cloud, the operational costs are reduced, better service is provided, and the work overall is more effective and quicker. All the records and medical data can be up on the cloud and accessed anytime, anywhere by the medical workers when they need it. This is also a safe and reliable method for storing data, and the data is backed up.
DNA sequencing
The first human genome sequencing happened back in 2003. The process lasted 13 years and cost nearly $3 billion. Since then, the advancement in technology made this process much, much cheaper, or around $1000. That is an extreme difference, and it’s all due to the development of technology. Nowadays, DNA data is extremely more accessible to patients and doctors too. The field keeps advancing and opening new horizons when it comes to extracting useful information from the DNA of people.
Remote health exams
With the development of technology, we have a lot of tools that make it easier for us to get health exams even if we can’t be in the same room as the doctor. Many online platforms, video connections, etc. This goes to the extremes too like for example with the invention of the health check chair which reads all the basic vitals of a person sitting at home and sends all the data to the physicians. Who knows what the future will bring!
Improved medical procedures
Technological advancements are the reason behind the improved safety of many medical procedures. Because of that, there is a lot of reduced risk connected to some of them, and shorter recovery time. Many treatments like laser procedures, are now less invasive and are done much quicker and safer. This also means the recovery time is reduced by a lot, due to the less invasive procedures.
Trackers and sensors
Even people on their own can now take better care of their health because the technology came up with various trackers and sensors that control the hearth of people. You can track your weight, level of tension, nutrition quality, BMI, percentage of fat, and many other things that when regulated can make you a much healthier human being. If you want to learn more about a best thc detox read this article.
3D printing
3D printing has made a lot of sectors more advanced, but the future potential that it has for the healthcare sector can be groundbreaking. It’s already possible to print small organs, blood vessels, bones, and even create synthetic skin. It’s possible to print durable implants and prosthetics. And the best part with 3D printing is that all of this is accessible with relatively low costs for manufacturing.
There are many other healthcare advancements that happened as a result of the advancing technology. We have yet to see what technology will bring to the world of medicine in the future.