12 Biggest Technological Advancements That Reshapes Healthcare During the Pandemic
Posted by 1st Providers Choice on
The coronavirus 19 (COVID-19) continues to change the world, especially our healthcare industry. Businesses all over the world are closing down, especially those non-essential services and leisure centers, to avoid further spreading the virus. Governments take extra precautionary measures like self-isolation and self-quarantine.
Countries are in a race to procure a vaccine to prevent more infections and treatment. Technological innovations, initiatives, and applications are also hastening their developments to stop the spread of the disease. Healthcare organizations worldwide are balancing their resources to save more lives without infecting and losing more health workers. Here are the top ten of the technological advancements that are reshaping healthcare during the pandemic:
The global pandemic hinders healthcare delivery. It also endangers the lives of the attending healthcare providers. Every country has its restrictive measures imposed to flatten the curve. Because of this, alternative healthcare technologies like telehealth technologies emerged.
Telehealth refers to the healthcare delivered remotely or via telecommunications. It allows patients to talk to doctors through their computers or mobile devices. Doctors can diagnose their patients online and give their prescriptions too. It saves time from traveling to and fro from the clinic and reduces the risk of COVID-19 infection. The online care and clinical remote delivery offer a lot of advantages, such as:
- Conserves hospital resources for COVID-19 and critical patients
- Contact tracing is easier
- Reduces virus transmission rates
- Hospitals can handle more patients for in-person care
Telehealth also allows global healthcare organizations and public health authorities to deploy online symptom checkers for COVID-19 screenings. They can safely obtain detailed information and exposure histories of the patients. It also allows access to specialty providers for those who aren’t able to travel due to the distance. Triage in hospitals also improves as they can sort out and instruct incoming patients before they arrive in the hospitals.
Online Appointment Booking
Patients can now easily book their appointments online through their computers, laptop, or mobile gadgets. It provides safety and convenience to patients, especially during the looming global pandemic. They can book anytime and anywhere with the time slot and date of their choosing. Healthcare providers and their staff can implement proper and strict measures for patients scheduled for in-clinic visits. It also streamlines the segmentation of patients for online televisits and in-clinic visits. Expect a lighter workload for your administrative and front desk staff from the reduction of phone calls.
Touchless Credit Card Processing
Your in-clinic visiting patients can now have a safe and convenient payment process. The contactless payment lets them pay with their card in just one tap. It has advanced security features like encryption and tokenization that prevent fraud and keep cardholder’s data safe. The technology can accept all major payment types such as credit, debit, ACH, HSA/FSA, and more. It also lets your patients pay online through your Patient Care Portal or Patient app. The system also captures and lets your patients sign disclosure forms digitally. Its software is PCI PA-DSS 3.2 compliant that helps in reducing your PCI compliance requirements. Here are some of its additional benefits:
- Reduce collection calls
- Take payments in person or online, before and after insurance claims have been processed.
- Increase in Revenue
- Automatically post payments to the patient ledger
- Better management in patient payments through intuitive and automatic reporting
Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a big part in tracking and managing disease outbreaks through analytics. The World Health Organization, scientists, and public health officials were able to track the spread of the disease in real-time, which helps them predict where the virus may appear next. It helps them formulate an emergency response ahead of time and impose strict health measures. The AI Epidemiologist first estimated the outbreak nine days before WHO announced the epidemic from an algorithm called the blue dot. However, people underestimated the danger. The AI shows an auspicious use for predicting any future outbreaks.
Time and speed are critical factors in handling any outbreak, especially for a full-blown pandemic of the COVID-19. The early detection of virus carriers and infected people can slow down the spread of the virus until they can develop a vaccine. Blockchain technology serves as a critical technology in epidemic management. The applications can render strong transparent, and cost-saving methods in effective decision making for emergency response. It has been an integral part of the COVID-19 pandemic by tracking the spread of the virus as well as the donations, medical supply chains, and insurance payouts management.. Also, it measures the accuracy in diagnostic and treatment effectiveness, identifies patterns in medical data, serves as a supply tracker for drugs and medical supplies, and streamlines the rapid isolation of cluster cases. Blockchain can reduce uncertainty and give computational trust due to its automated platform handling the high numbers of incoming data from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Open Source Technologies
Open Source technologies allow an efficient collaboration of data and low-cost dissemination that establishes a multitude of repositories for data sharing. One hundred eighty-three variants of SARS-COV-2 are available as open-sources to speed up the production of a vaccine and treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control coordinates most of these data-collection activities. There is also an increasing development of open-source projects, initiatives, and shared blueprints for research, scientific publications, and innovative productions on medical equipment for the pandemic.
The global pandemic exceeded the capacity of the world’s healthcare system. Even the most medically and technologically advanced countries are experiencing a shortage of supplies to cater to the rising number of patients. 3D printing helped boost the production and optimize the amounts of medical equipment needed, such as personal protective equipment (PPE), face masks, ventilators, and breathing filters. It plays a vital role in sustaining healthcare organizations and countries around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gene Modifying Technologies
Scientists were able to isolate the SARS-COV-2 virus and determine the full sequence of its genetic material in just two weeks. The genetic code was able to show the origin of the virus and how it spreads. It is also helping pharmaceutical and scientists worldwide make a vaccine and effective treatment or drugs for the disease.
Nanotechnology refers to the science, engineering, and technology done at a nanoscale (1-100 nanometers). It is the study and the application of nano-sized particles and devices used across other fields of science. The technology has also been a great tool in diagnostics, drug delivery, therapeutic material productions, biomedical, and diagnostic applications in detecting viral particles. It shows great potential in treating a viral infection like the COVID-19.
Synthetic biology refers to the study of redesigning and reverse engineering of organisms to gain useful purposes. It attempts to alter the genotype of the SARS-COV-2. Scientists have been applying and researching non-stop to develop a successful vaccine.
Drones are instrumental in containing the spread of the virus by its capability to perform technical tasks inefficiently, reducing the need for direct human contacts. It helps monitor and deliver items and medical samples to people in remote and quarantined areas. Countries are also using it to disinfect areas in epidemic hotspots. Governments are also utilizing it to enforce restrictions on movements by installing thermal sensors and night visions during lockdowns.
Robots protect healthcare workers from getting infected by providing services and care for those who are in quarantine. Developers immediately respond to the global pandemic by testing robots and drones in public to achieve the safest way of halting the spread of the virus. It helps disinfect areas, decontaminate private and public sectors and medical supplies, handle biohazardous wastes, and many more. It shows a promising and intelligent assistive technology in the combat against the coronavirus (COVID-19)
It is no doubt that technologies make the world a better place. If you need any help in upgrading your practice, 1st Provider’s Choice has you covered. We have all the technologies that expedite all your processes and help more and more patients. Call 480-782-1116 today to speak with one of our experts and get started!