Health in technology: software
How technologies help in health
For those less familiar with the subject, what differences can we find between a hospital and a clinic? And what effects could they have on your management systems?
Years ago, when talking about a hospital, a public service came to mind. On the other hand, when talking about a clinic, we came up with the concept of private service. Also, in the past, the economic status of the people who went to one or the other differed.
This perception has changed over time and now we have public, private and mixed care hospitals . Although when we talk about these centers we think of 24-hour services, emergencies, admissions, operating rooms, pharmacies, specific treatment units, management of diagnostic tests, etc.
On the contrary, if we appoint a clinic , it does not have to be open all the time. We normally associate it with outpatient care , medical consultations and the application of specific treatments (such as rehabilitation).
But the differences between both health centers have been increasingly diluted. Nowadays there are many private clinics, for example, that provide uninterrupted care. In addition, they have almost the same services as a hospital, even though they are on a smaller scale .
Therefore, one of the main differences that there may be between a 24-hour clinic and a hospital is the admission system . That ihttps://www.sparkouttech.com/custom-software-development-services/s to say, the second has greater capacity , while the first is usually more thematic : in traumatology, aesthetics, etc. Regarding information systems, there are both specific and large and integrated ones, which cover the different areas of the center and connect them to each other.
What benefits does health find in technology?
Today, as patients, we see many changes in traditional systems. The most important is that the patient travels and moves without having to carry their records from one place to another.
We could frame this in the IoT in Healthcare. And this allows you to have a complete and updated medical history to prepare for the visit, schedule tests efficiently, save time and feed the diagnostic databases so that the AI can provide suggestions to the doctor about where to go. could focus.
Apart from the obvious convenience, what else is behind all this? What benefits do professionals obtain?
The great benefit has been brought precisely by the incursion of technologies into health at a global level. At first there was a lot of use of paper and decentralized services that did not communicate with each other. But with the great evolution that has occurred, now the patient has access to their health data from their smartphone .
You can also request a medical consultation online . And in this the main change that I see is that, if a problem arises due to a delay or delay, a notification arrives to inform the patient. A reminder of that appointment is even usually sent days before.
Likewise, the patient can cancel a test remotely and even fill in pre-admission data, for example. It is important that you can see the x-ray, ultrasound or MRI that you have had, on your own mobile phone or tablet . And it is very useful to be able to take it to be seen by a professional from another place, if they do not have a connection to the system in which it is located.
In the end, the user is the bearer of this information from the shared Electronic Health Record (EHR) and the interconnection between the different systems.
In private healthcare, a large investment has been made so that the benefits that health can find in software development solutions are also possible. Because healthcare organizations have seen that technology is a great ally that allows them to reduce costs, time and risks .
On the other hand, when talking about systems managing large amounts of data from many people, we have to refer to Big Data . This plays a prominent role when it comes to analyzing and exploiting all the information , so that the beneficiary is the patient themselves. The advantages can be noticed in treatments, in anticipating possible pathologies or in detecting certain symptoms that we do not appreciate, but that this custom enterprise software development does.
And how secure is all this information? Should we worry?
Honestly no, there is no need to worry. Investment in computer security (which is already very high ) is growing a lot in all sectors and, especially, in healthcare. We must keep in mind that all the information stays in large computing data centers.
This does not mean that there may be sporadic cases of improper access , but the impact is usually minimal . We can be very calm in this regard, since there is always a team ensuring that these situations do not occur and, if they do occur, acting immediately.
In the evolution of health in software development services we can incorporate the concept of telemedicine . After Covid-19, its usefulness has been confirmed for emergencies, in difficult-to-access environments or when there are patients with mobility problems, among other situations.
In conclusion, are we close to a future in which attention is not linked to going where the information is? For example, without going to the consultation, being able to outsource post-operative care, having care provided in the same homes, etc.
That future is truly here. Health technologies have managed to break physical barriers, have unified work processes and reduced patient treatment times. The computer systems of the main health organizations “talk” to each other to send requests, results, data on the person's evolution, etc.
For example, a doctor can receive a notification on his mobile phone if an admitted patient has increased a certain value and requires his assistance. The doctor can consult the data at any time, without having to be in front of a computer.
There are even hospitals that track patient traceability throughout the building automatically using RFID identification bracelets . This allows you to see where he is and what is being done to him (if he is in pre-op, in the operating room, in the resuscitation room...).
Today we even find surgical robots , something that was unthinkable twenty years ago. These help in highly complex surgeries or in those that were previously very invasive.