The onset of Covid-19 has brought about inevitable changes throughout the healthcare industry. Countries across the globe are facing the wrath of COVID impacts as the absurdity continues to prevail. Healthcare leaders, policymakers, public in the United States are very eager to know what 2022 holds for them. Healthcare technologies like Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT, Robotics, Telemedicine capabilities have immensely expanded to support the pandemic response and subsequent recovery, a notable trend that will likely continue to accelerate healthcare technology in the United States (US). Let’s see some of the significant healthcare trends in the United States and how technology is playing a significant role in shaping them.

1. Personalized Consumer-Care

i. In-Store

The landscape of healthcare services and delivery in the United States is undergoing a major transformation, providing patients with choice-based options for healthcare than ever before. While this transformation in healthcare unfolds, care delivery will see some striking, new consumer-friendly models that will benefit stakeholders across the healthcare industry in the US. If you are in the USA right now, you will observe MinuteClinic everywhere, in almost every city in the USA. As per CVS, there exist more than 1,100 MinuteCinics sheltered in target stores and CVS pharmacies across 33 states and the Columbia District.CVS is a renowned healthcare retailer within primary care in the healthcare sector in the United States. However, there are more retailers in the healthcare domain. According to CNBC October 2021 report, Walgreens Boots Alliance plans to open a minimum of 600 primary care clinics in the US by 2025. The healthcare trend in the United States will see major retailers establish a foothold in the sector of primary care, and patients will have many options to choose from. These retailers (retail pharmacies) are transforming the primary care model into a one-stop shop that provides seamless service to the end-users/patients/consumers. Retail pharmacies or retailers, receive great volumes of customers’ data and know their specific requirements. Thus, personalization of delivery service allows patients to drop by one location get treated, get medicines and quickly get over with the process therein. Understanding specifically about current and future consumers/customers is what about the upcoming healthcare trend in the United States.

ii. Virtual Care

During the pandemic, virtual healthcare has become very popular especially after the pandemic struck. Patients who just cannot manage in-person visits are preferring connecting with doctors, physicians on a remote basis. Healthcare providers have noticed this trending consumer behavior of patients and others and integrating relevant digital tools and technologies into their current landscape. This is leading to increased consumerization, on the part of retailers as well as virtual healthcare providers, which is improving patients’ experience ultimately. Especially for those living in rural areas, virtual healthcare services (telemedicine types) help to provide enhanced access to primary care for patients. These trends are picking up greatly throughout the US and pressurizing healthcare fraternities, hospitals, to match what consumers want. Consequently, many health systems are heavily investing in telemedicine, virtual care.

2. Automation & Digital Assistants

There’s been a massive shortage of healthcare staff across the United States. As reported by Bloomberg, the US Health & Human Services Department confirmed that as of October 1, 2021, “16% of American hospitals had critical staffing shortages”. Healthcare providers like nurses, doctors as well as call center agents have been in shorter supply! These shortages in healthcare staffing have propelled the growth of automation in the healthcare segment. This will allow patients to receive the best care they need without delay. In the last few years, US healthcare like hospitals, clinics, has adopted patient journey automation which is helping to reduce manual clinical work, administrative work involved in patient care. For instance, healthcare apps, digital chatbots, AI-ML powered virtual assistants, are facilitating a smooth and efficient care journey for patients at the early stages of the care process. These virtual assistants help patients in finding a doctor in the nearby area, can book appointments for consultation with a physician, and get personalized recommendations for varied healthcare issues. These digital healthcare assistants reduce the workloads of care teams, do post-discharge follow-up with patients, and so on. Thus, app-based automation of the clinical work, administration work, can prove to be a big time-saving, cost-effective solution to the staff-shortage challenge. Indeed a popular healthcare trend that will pick up in 2022 in the United States.

3. Data and Analytics

The pandemic has accelerated the pace of technological intervention in the entire healthcare segment across the US. There’s been a massive demand for real-time data to get eth right statistics and insights. Health systems in the United States are increasingly leveraging data & advanced analytics that update them with the latest insights and predictions helping in the decision-making process. For instance, hospital administrations want to have the updated COVID-19 dashboards on an hourly basis. Using data analytics they can seamlessly do so. AI-ML predictive analytics, advanced analytics, is now at the forefront of disease response, like, predictive analytics, models, track the virus and then estimate the severeness of Covid risk in patients, whether mild or severe symptoms, thus enabling for an effective, efficient treatment.

4. Telehealth Will Stay

The healthcare trend in the United States has shown an immense inclination towards digital technology-powered telehealth and telemedicine. The pandemic has only triggered its usage as it allows virtual treatment and healthcare service delivery. Touchless health systems adopting AI-ML-IoT enabled tools to facilitate smooth care for patients on a remote basis. Interactive & live, real-time virtual consultation,store-and-forward telemedicine, remote patient monitoring telemedicine all are diligently assisting healthcare efforts in the country. As per McKinsey’s study, telehealth adopted by patients in the US rose from 11 to 46 %  in 2020. Moreover, the prediction says telehealth could account for the massive 20% of the entire US healthcare spending in the future, and that means 250 billion USD.

Resonating With Digital Adoption

As per Forbes, these healthcare trends are very much to stay now in the USA and will impact healthcare in positive manners. The wider adoption of digital tools and technologies in the healthcare sector will assure convenient and efficient healthcare access for underserved patients, improved workload distribution for clinical healthcare staff, less administrative burden, and powerful integrated care delivery networks. Healthcare providers need to strategize while following these trends that will shape up their healthcare outcomes in 2022 and beyond.

Are you a healthcare service provider in the United States and want to integrate digital into your business following the latest healthcare trends encompassing your country? Connect to our experts today.

The healthcare industry runs on data. Managing databases is an arduous task, the most responsible task, as it directly impacts patients’ overall care management, and a tiny misinterpretation could cost lives! Big Data and AI-ML-powered analytics have changed the way you process data and predict patient care methods and outcomes. Healthcare data analytics has massive benefits viz., treatment cost reduction, prediction of epidemics(COVID or SARS and the likes), avert preventable diseases, precise & accurate diagnosis, preventive and precision medicines are available on time, and more. If you are a physician, a doctor, you stand on the frontline of healthcare.  What are the top ways healthcare data analytics can help you in disseminating your noble service to humanity,i.e.patientcare? Let’s discuss!

1. Descriptive Data Analytics

Descriptive Analytics is widely used in the healthcare segment especially in clinical research. As per one Healthcare meta-analysis report, 48% of clinical research studies were being done on a methodology based on descriptive analytics. Besides clinical research, descriptive healthcare analytics are increasingly adopted in other research areas related to pharmacovigilance, public health, mental health as well. Pharmacovigilance is an excellent example of the efficacy of data analytics in helping physicians in terms of immediate and actionable information. It is helping physicians most directly as they can retrieve actionable insights and information for prescribing medicines, as in the case of researchers’ data mining study that showed FDA’s adverse remarks about statins. It revealed that pravastatin, rosuvastatin, simvastatin were linked to severe renal failure. This way, physicians could get actionable information about these statins towards prescribing them. Furthermore, descriptive data analytics help doctors/physicians with treatment programs by identifying demographics, for example,  oncological insights like cancer trends and related expenditure help them take the call. Another significant example of its usage aspects is the current pandemic. The COVID challenge brought to fore the need for real-time monitoring of several healthcare channels including supply-chain,bed-capacity, supply of oxygen cylinders, concentrators, basis a specific region. Methodologies like data visualization, data mining to carry out a descriptive analysis of a given case are indeed noteworthy how physicians are leveraging descriptive analytics capabilities.

2. Predictive Analytics

As frontline workers, physicians have realized the significance of enhanced predictive analytics during the COVID crisis. Being sudden, hazardous, uncertain in character, COVID posed a serious challenge to them to handle appropriately. Adopting analytical methods in a predictive manner, they could anticipate future developments and cases backed by an advanced level of precision, agility, and speed that ensured efficient management of the situations before them. Doctors and physicians do get better experience using predictive analytics for the treatment of chronic illnesses, like kidney disease. They can easily diagnose the early signs of CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) by implementing proper data analysis. As per researches, low-level data in databases are digitally transformed into high-level information/knowledge discovery that helps to detect CKD symptoms/patterns in an early stage. This allows healthcare management to improve their decision-making process; they can efficiently allocate resources and plan for patient-centric management conducive to business outcomes.

3. Prescriptive Analytics

Prescriptive analytics happens to be the natural progression occurring from procedures of descriptive and predictive analytics. It can substantiate the stand by removing guesswork that emerged out of data analytics. Prescriptive analytics in healthcare adopts a similar modeling approach to predict outcomes and then utilizes the maximum capabilities of AI-ML, business rules, several algorithms to do a simulation of varied approaches to suggest the best possible actionable insights. Prescriptive healthcare analytics is helping healthcare businesses to adopt cost-effective procedures as it curbs the overusing of testing, screening, and other diagnostic tests. As per  Harvard Business School, Prescriptive Analytics has the capabilities to gauge patients’ early medical conditions, the pre-existing ones that help to evaluate further risks and suggest preventive treatment methods to the physicians.

Bottomline

Healthcare Data Analytics is helping the healthcare fraternity with massive returns on business as well as advanced patient care provision. Technology proves to be the soulmate of doctors and physicians as they juxtapose roles based on cases and situations such as pandemics, patients suffering from chronic illness, etc. Big Data, Descriptive Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Prescriptive Analytics, all are the varied faces of the same dice. Algorithms are here to stay.

Interested to know how data analytics can enhance your healthcare business growth? Contact Us.

The healthcare industry has undergone a massive transformation in the past couple of years. There was a time when we thought of an artificial limb as a striking invention, and today companies are trying to collect genetic data for creating bio databases. There’s no dearth of innovative opportunities in healthcare provided there are the exquisite technology sets to give them fillip. The pandemic has only hastened a transition to digital health, while industry players are keen on investing more in them seeing how AI-ML-driven digital tools and applications are driving the whole game!

Digital Trend #1 Telemedicine

Telemedicine has come out to be the trendiest trend post-pandemic and is only getting stronger in the years to come. The shift in the healthcare practice after 2020 to restrict the spread of infections, emphasis on remote patient care, real-time virtual consultation, telePharmacy, teleradiology, teleNeurology, etc. are going to pick massively as a trend in the year 2022, and way beyond until this technology transforms to the next level. As per sources, telemedicine is expected to reach 460 billion USD by the year 2030.

Digital Trend #2  AI/ML

AI/ML  industry players are interestingly watching how these digital technologies are emerging as a trendsetter, and are keen on investing more in them. As per HIMSS survey conducted from March-April 2021, one-third of the total health system respondents (2,743 in the US) said AI/ML to be their top on the list for the coming five years. AI-ML-based treatments, discovering newer facets in medicine and research, avoiding physical tests, and using simulations to find the answers, all are on the list of trends in 2022 and beyond.

Digital Trend #3  AR/VR/MR

Modern healthcare practices are much influenced by computer-generated 3D graphics and several digital imaging tools. AR/VR/MR alongside AI-ML digital tools & technologies can create ripples in the healthcare domain and transform the ways of modern medicine being practiced. For instance, the medical fraternity can plan surgeries, therapies much in advance using simulation tools, and can see the procedures, results way ahead in advance. MR is used to control/manage medical procedures, equipment remotely and on time. These three ‘realities’ will become a massive trend in 2022, no doubt.

Digital Trend #4  AI-Robotics

AI (Artificial Intelligence)technology dons innumerable roles. If combined with Robotics technology, it can create robots that can act as an assistant to the medical team of doctors and nurses. Especially during the COVID times, we have seen how difficult it was to cater to COVID patients as infection could be transmitted to the attending doctors/nurses. AI robots can assist in many areas like remote diagnostics, administration, cleanliness, and the likes. This technology will become a trend next year onward as it is increasingly helping healthcare professionals while minimizing the risk of potential threats like disease transmission (for example COVID).

Digital Trend #5  Big Data & Analytics

Data is the core of healthcare management. Right from diagnostics, consultations, treatment plans to varied medical procedures, patient files generate enormous volumes of data, that are duly digitalized and securely stored somewhere in the Clouds. Big Data and analytics help to evaluate each piece of data, arrange them properly and accurately, in an organized manner. Thus, the advancement in computing capabilities, analytics, advanced databases all greatly prompt Big Data in healthcare to manage things as mentioned. Further, big data analytics tools process data and provide actionable insights, information that helps in the decision-making process of the healthcare stakeholders.

Digital Trend #6  IoMT

IoT ( Internet- of- things) combined with telehealth technologies, IoMT (Internet-of-Medical-Things) have emerged. The healthcare sector has been leveraging the technology in a big way and the market is expected to reach 6.2trillion USD by the year 2025. Looking at the scope of telemedicine, IoMT is equally going to be a bigger trend in 2022.

Digital Trend #7 Cyber Security & BlockChain Technology

Data security, data privacy is paramount. Digitalization of medical information, healthcare services call for total protection of data. Patient information like bank account detail, payment identification numbers, social security numbers, etc. need strong firewalls to secure, hide those sensitive data, and other AI-powered cyber security tools to protect. Blockchain technology also seals the authenticity of the authorized members as there is no chance of making any modification once the data are entered.

What Tech Trends Suit Your Healthcare Business?

The healthcare technology trends or the digital healthcare trends have started picking up albeit not at the same pace and proportion but Yes, they are! A majority of these trends are surely going to become an integral part of the healthcare ecosystem, the way healthcare services will get delivered and the way consumed. The bottom line is, which trend does meet your healthcare business requirement!? Point to ponder.

Are you a healthcare company, hospital, Start-UP, SMB, or enterprise, willing to explore the healthcare digital technology trends that might uplift your business prospect? Contact our experts!

If you are an avid follower of this space, you must have read our previous blogs that feature the two specific telemedicine types viz. Real-Time and Store-and-Forward. This is the concluding part of our 3-type-telemedicine series – Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). Also referred to as Telemonitoring, RPM is a medical practice that allows healthcare professionals to keep tabs on a patient’s health, vital activities, signs, from a distance. T­he RPM telemedicine is often used to administer patients who are at high risk, for example, patients with some sort of chronic diseases or heart conditions and who have got discharged recently from the hospital. In this case, RPM telemedicine comes to the forefront. Let us discuss today this third type of telemedicine, and how healthcare providers can leverage its massive capabilities for maximum outcomes.

What is RPM

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) is the telemedicine type that incorporates a process of managing chronic conditions of patients using  RPM technology. The very technology securely collects and exchanges patients’ data and does the monitoring from a distance, remote locations. Monitoring patients suffering from acute illness becomes a responsible task for the healthcare teams consisting of respective doctors, nurses attending to them.RPM enables you to monitor patients adopting  monitoring devices such as :

• Glucose-Meters for managing diabetes patients
• Oximeters for measuring blood-oxygen levels
• Continuous surveillance monitors for dementia patients
• Heart-Rate monitors for  managing congestive heart failure
• Blood- Pressure Cuffs  for measuring blood- pressure
• Musculoskeletal Risk- Stratification Software
• IoT-enabled grip-strength sensors for managing Parkinson’s patients
• Logging programs for calorie intake
• Logging programs for accurate exercise-regime

Thus, you see, how RPM telemedicine is facilitating an easy and convenient virtual care management. All it does is to gather and analyze health data for streamlining high-risk patient care, which helps to determine quickly if their health condition is improving or not, whether stabilized or deteriorating!

Benefits

RPM telemedicine gathers, brings real-time patients’ data to your fingertips all the time, 24/7. It makes an easy process for your clinicians and healthcare professionals enabling them to deliver quality healthcare services  It’s easy for you and your clinicians to use, and it enables the delivery of higher-quality care to a larger section of patients. In short, it leads to patients’ higher efficiency level owing to their less burnout and of course a much low-cost affair saving unnecessary expenses.

1. Constant Accessibility

Usually, it is a full-day affair for many patients to get a doctor’s appointment and get the complete treatment process started. People need to take their time off from busy schedules affecting their work and other daily priorities. Many people don’t have timely transportation facilities or inconvenient access to public transportation. Some struggle to leave toddlers or aging parents behind to avail of the medical facility, and many others. All these challenges are properly met and handled with care via RPM telemedicine technology. Even in the case of people living in remote areas, rural areas, there is limited access to healthcare facilities. Attending to doctors personally may require traveling far places, even to a different country entirely in case of certain conditions!RPM (Remote patient monitoring) solves all of these accessibility-related challenges and gives patients a seamless experience for constant access-provision to the healthcare services at virtual modes.

2. Patient Engagement

RPM telemedicine involves a two-way communication process to get the desired outcomes. Patients’ cooperation is sought in terms of their self-monitoring habits and timely engagement to adhere to the process rules. Patients and their caregivers, family members need to ensure that they are following the self-monitoring regimen as directed by the doctors. RPM is successful if patients are equally cooperating being in different locations. They need to perceive that RPM is for their benefits only, and that way stick to self-monitoring practice in an ethical and disciplined manner. When your patients witness directly how other patients are improving using RPM technology, they get motivated and follow the routine instructions responsibly. As a healthcare provider, you need to boost your patients’ engagement by being proactive on your part. Give them positive feedback even on their slightest improvements, check in often, opt for active and constant encouragement. It depends upon a patient’s chronic ailment and how difficult is his condition for improvement, that you should decide the frequency of interaction with them.

3. Quality Care

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) telemedicine services help you for instant access to your patients who need your urgent attention. You can reach to them instantly at the exact moment when they are struggling with any sort of treatment blues, experiencing pain or undergoing confusion pangs, and so on. RPM allows you to provide treatment to your patients from your location on a remote basis quite comfortably, and on the other side, patients, too, receive treatment at their respective locations in a comfort zone. General medical routines become less stressful, efficient, and convenient when patients are cooperating with their medical team by constantly communicating with them. Therefore, RPM leads to saving time and energy, both, while allowing the medical team, clinicians, to attend to each patient deliberately and more calmly that also reduces staff’s burnout rate!

4. Better Outcome

Patients don’t have to scramble for appointments and struggle to manage time off their routine work. They can now afford, sincerely manage focus on your treatment instructions,self-monitoring becomes easy and convenient now. They can focus on what you say and you are managing them based on all the health data you gather via RPM technology. You see, how they’re being well informed, adequately educated leads to proper patient engagement and better outcomes. No doubt, RPM can effectively manage serious health situations like chronic heart failure following ­­­­a rapid intervention.

Bottom Line

 RPM telemedicine is dedicated to free up more energy, more time for healthcare providers while saving costs in abundance. It benefits patients, caregivers, providers, and the entire healthcare system. It is just about leveraging the immense power of digital technology that facilitates the gathering of patient data outside of traditional health care delivery settings. Advanced access to virtual care assures increased levels of patient-provider communications, improved patients’ engagement and involvement towards self-monitoring, RPM telemedicine is expanding its outreach exponentially the world over.

Interested to know more about RPM telemedicine and its immense business opportunities in healthcare? Contact us.

If you are a healthcare practitioner, you know how patients’ data become urgent at times for an emergency procedure while treating them on a remote basis. Relevant video recordings, images, become paramount for accurate diagnosis and recommendations. This is called store-and-forward telemedicine that allows you for an evidence-based healthcare practice. Also termed as an asynchronous, store-and-forward type of telemedicine allows collecting clinical data and information like demographic data, lab reports, medical history in the form of sound files or image/video formats, and then digitally sending them to a secure site, cloud-based platform, that can be accessible by authorized users only.

Security Aspects

Store-and-Forward telemedicine is not like your regular e-mail communication. Email is not a secured medium, is it? The very telemedicine type  (store-and-forward) needs to adhere to the security requirements of the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act(HIPAA). Thus, as a healthcare professional, you cannot use email for transferring patients’ data to specialists; physicians cannot use text messages/email for treatment provision or gathering patients’ medical information. You can use your mobile phone, desktop, laptop, tablet to avail of this telemedicine facility.

Do you know?

Store-and-forward telemedicine is different from real-time telemedicine in that it does not require a doctor, specialist, patients, any other healthcare stakeholders to be available at the same time!

Applied Areas

1. TeleRadiology

Teleradiology is one of the biggest wonders in the telemedicine sector. Store-and-forward telemedicine is increasingly expanding in the radiology realm by infusing digital technologies with this healthcare specialty at the micro-level. Radiologists today adopt this modern telemedicine tool that enables them to see cases from a distant, remote location. For example, MRI, X-ray, CT scans are accessed online, which enables a  radiologist to give the radiological diagnosis information and recommendations to consulting specialist/physician anytime (now or later). This way, store-and-forward telemedicine enables the radiologist to analyze multiple radiological images/videos/forms/charts in sooner time bringing inefficiency to the entire process. It is also used during an emergency when a general radiologist needs to consult a sub-specialist like a pediatric radiologist.

2. TeleOphthalmology

Teleophthalmology is the eye-screening healthcare facility that is done on a remote basis without the patient-doctor real-time interaction. It is a massive store-and-forward telemedicine service where a patient can click optical images, then send them to an ophthalmologist thereby facilitating early detection of ocular anomalies. This is indeed an improved and advanced healthcare service that is possible using digital technology. Another instance is when eye screenings of patients for diabetic retinopathy, are digitally captured by advanced retinal cameras, and then transmitted to eye specialists for their review and recommendations. This way, the eConsult segment, store-and-forward telemedicine is greatly helping the ophthalmology sector bringing in improved patient outcomes.

3. TeleDermatology

The teledermatology in-store-and-forward type of telemedicine means sending the images of skin lesions to a dermatologist who in turn views, diagnoses, and prescribes/recommends a proper treatment plan on a remote basis only. For instance, Nurses in a skin-lesion clinic or mole-mapping clinic, use this methodology of in-store-and-forward telemedicine procedure, send relevant laboratory reports to the concerned dermatologists/specialists for skin-cancer detection.

4. TelePathology

Pathology is another applied area where telemedicine enters as a facilitating force. Telepathology is the type of store-and-forward telemedicine application that helps to digitally transmit extensive,data-rich specimens like pathology images, videos, for examination by a pathologist located at a distance. It is used for diagnosis, research& education purposes, medical consultations, etc. Telepathology is widely used nowadays as it allows inter-consultations amongst specialists in pathology from across the world. It also supports very fast diagnosis and better management of patients irrespective of geographical boundaries. Telepathology system is divided into three major types – Real-Time system, Virtual-Slide System, as well as Image-based-Systems.

5. Specialist Referral Platform

The Store-and-forward type of telemedicine significantly provides a platform to healthcare professionals for specialist referrals. For example, a General Practitioner (GP)can transfer his patients’ data to the concerned specialists remotely. This way, experts’ opinions, consultation, can be taken on requirements for a better treatment process.

BENEFITS

The major benefits of Store-and-Forward type of Telemedicine are:

• Easy & convenient access to care
• Patient’s high satisfaction level
• Time-saving speedy process
• Increased efficiency
• Increased market potential attracting newer patients frequently
• Less liability owing to documentation, digital auditing trails
• Better practice skills for  the medical community, students, research scholars

One Among the BEST Healthcare Practices

The increasing graph in chronic diseases the world over is considered as a major driver for the global telemedicine market growth. While the market stood at a remarkable 27.04 billion USD in 2020, it is estimated to reach 171.81 billion USD by 2027 (source- Brand Essence Research). The Store-and Forward telemedicine platform is increasingly contributing to the massive surge in the sector, especially in the areas of dermatology, pathology, radiology, and ophthalmology. Practitioners, for example, are gaining by gathering and analyzing images,high-volume data for their accurate clinical decisions, at their convenient timing and places.

If you are in the healthcare business and willing to explore the power of store- and- forward telemedicine, this is the right place for you. Contact our exclusive experts from Telemedicine who can guide you through the step-by-step process.

Telemedicine is empowering the healthcare industry to a new dimension. The real-time interaction between doctor and patient is increasing the trust quotient of this digitally-enabled system. The convergence of digital technology, video conferencing, smartphones, mobile apps is making the process of telemedicine a convenient, affordable, and time-saving regimen for healthcare providers as well as their patients. The number of people using telemedicine is only showing an upper trend steadily over the years, and over half of the total U.S.hospitals having at least one telemedicine program as of now. As per Allied Market Research, by 2030, the telemedicine market size is estimated to grow at an impressive $431.82 billion globally, at a CAGR of 25.9% (source- GlobeNewswire). As telemedicine consists of three types, we are discussing only one specific type in today’s blog –  About the Real-Time interactive Telemedicine.

What is Real-Time Interactive Telemedicine

Healthcare services that can be provided to patients over virtual mode via devices like smartphones/mobile apps and have video calling features, texting features via messaging apps,  SMS, are described to be Real-Time Interactive Telemedicine.

The feature of interactive care within the gamut of telemedicine is the telecommunication between patients and respective healthcare providers and there occurs the real-time interaction. This method incorporates a live audio/video session, that involves discussing and transferring patients’ data while the session is still on between clinicians and patients. So, we can understand that real-time interactive telemedicine is very much similar to that one used in-person/physical visits to the clinics. The only difference here is the virtual mode but the benefits are more as compared to the in-person visits.

Applied Areas

1. Follow check-ups, once the  patients are discharged from hospitals

2. Mental health treatments like dementia, Neuropsychology

3. Pharmaceutical Advices

4. Remote Nursing Consultations

5. Post-Injury Rehabilitation Treatments

TeleNeuroPsychology

A significant use case of the real-time interactive telemedicine type is teleNeuropsychology. For a patient with a cognitive disorder or suspected to have one, a timely and convenient neuropsychological consultation, assessment can be done over the phone only, over mobile phone on video calls, direct talks between the doctor and the patient. Techniques that comply with a standard evaluation process are effectively implemented that leads to a genuine and fair assessment of the specific patient using video technology. A study has found out that this type of telemedicine service proves to be a very feasible and reliable alternative to conventional in-person consultations and assessments of patients’ cognitive behavior and neuro-psychology.

Telepharmacy

This mode of telemedicine service helps patients to get a smoother medication facility when it is not possible to visit a pharmacy, real-time virtual consultation gives them pharmaceutical advice. This facilitates thorough monitoring of patients concerning their medication part, and see if they require any in-between medical advice over the phone.

Telenursing

Telenursing means utilizing digital technologies for communication to provide nursing service on a remote basis.  Medical consultation can be delivered over mobile app-based video calls, or simply over message medium like Whatsapp, telenursing is being considered as a boon to the healthcare fraternity. Nurses do the diagnosis, monitoring of health symptoms and conditions using video calls mostly which are empowered by the advanced AI-ML-based digital technologies. Especially in the rural areas where people have limited healthcare facilities, they leverage this type of telemedicine for their treatment which requires a long-form of monitoring, consultation, and the entire treatment process.

Telerehabilitation

Telerehabilitation is considered a major technology boon empowered by telemedicine capabilities. The very telemedicine service utilizes digital technologies for communicating and performing clinical assessments for patients. Telerehabilitation is the adequate and most refined way today to conduct therapies for rehabilitation patients. This process involves strong visual elements, the latest technology-powered video conferences, webcams, etc. which are usually used for assisting in the communication of symptoms as well as clinical progress.

Conclusion

Telemedicine is rapidly increasing its reach to every nook and corner of the cities, countries, globally. Digitally-enabled video conferencing services, virtual consultations on video calls, mobile calls, will continue to play a significant role in telemedicine services and healthcare practices. All that requires is a digitally-capabled ecosystem and mutual collaboration between healthcare providers and their patients hailing from across the world.

How telemedicine can empower your healthcare business to the next level? Connect with us and get started right away!

Do you know India sets a new world record by administering over 75Crores Covid vaccine doses in the fight against corona? Thanks to the CoWIN app, the indigenous healthcare app in India that protects you from the precarious effects of coronavirus. The app allows you to follow a 3-step easy process viz.,booking an appointment, getting the vaccine as per slot allotted, and finally, downloading the COVID certificate, your licensed health certificate. The pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in healthcare, and people are increasingly resorting to web & mobile app-based home healthcare services, telemedicine. All these trigger digital health leading to quality personalized healthcare services across geographical boundaries. Be it healthcare providers, hospitals, clinics, businesses, or patients, healthcare apps are dominating the healthcare sector in India. Let’s find out a few of the best healthcare apps in India!

Figure1- Google Playstore

Google Playstore – Free & Paid Apps

1. PharmEasy – Online Medicine Ordering App

PharmEasy app is one of the most popular healthcare apps in India specializing in online pharmacy. It allows you to buy healthcare products, medical equipment, and OTC products online. You can even book online diagnostic tests and other preventive health checkups from the comfort zone of your home. Quite an easy mode of home delivery, a perfect online medicine delivery app for your medical needs.

Online Rating – 4.5

2. Practo- Online Doctor Appointments & Consultation

Practo is also a popular online doctor consultation app and it offers a complete range of telemedicine solutions for your medical needs. The Practo app allows you to access a wide network of multiple clinics, doctors who provide online consultations to patients across the country. The mobile app has more than  5 million installs by now across India. Patients can have a direct chat and calls with the doctors they consult. The app uses Google Map to identify doctors who are available in the locations near to patients.

Online Rating – 4.5

3. mFine

mFine is a top healthcare app in India while showing over 2 million app downloads by now. It offers 24*7 AI-enabled telemedicine services such as doctor-patient consultation, audio/video calls, etc. The very app connects more than thirty specializations for consultancy services. A patient has to pay for booking an appointment over the app but needs not to pay again during follow-ups. The app arranges for personalized digital prescriptions as well as home-diagnostic tests.

Online Rating – 4.5

4. Pedi -STAT

A significant healthcare app for pediatric patients in the emergency and critical care wards. Pedi-STAT app works for a timely and rapid reference for paramedics, RNs, physicians, and pediatricians.

Online Rating – 4.5

5. Critical – Medical Guide

A marvelous app that takes care of the entire critical care needs and a comprehensive guide for that regard.A complete critical care reference app for RNs, physicians, and other healthcare professionals.

Online Rating – 4

Figure2 – iOS Appstore

iOS Appstore – Free & Paid Apps

1. Apollo 247

Apollo 24|7  app is a renowned name in the healthcare domain and relates to Apollo Group of Hospitals. It provides outstanding app- services like a personalized level of health experience in all, priority access, and valued Prices. Absolutely a complete healthcare buddy that is available 24*7 anywhere in India.

Online Rating- 4

2. Netmeds

Netmeds app makes your medicine delivery an easy process. You can download and install the app to avail of medicine service from anywhere and anytime within India. Go to the app and tap over it to upload your specific requirement for medicines. The Netmeds healthcare app in India also allows you to consult doctors online, book lab tests, and obviously, home delivers your medicines.

Online Rating-4.5

3. Hompath FireFly

 It is a popular homeopathy app based in AppStore. Hompath FireFly app refers to  10 repertories directly from Kent, Boericke, Kent, Boenninghausen, and many more, while effectively managing patients’ cases over virtual mode anytime, anywhere.  This innovative mobile healthcare app is making people go crazy for its massive features and benefits.

Online Rating – 3

4. DrugDoses

DrugDoses app is the iOS version of  Frank Shann’s little booklet which has been helping the healthcare industry the world over for over 30 years towards prescribing medicines to children. So far, DrugDoses has more than 2150 entries. The app is yearly updated and updates information regarding the latest drugs in the market.

Online Rating – 4.5

5. MRCP PACES

A fantastic healthcare app in India, the MRCP PACES  app has some exclusive iPhone features that benefit a user’s journey while availing of this app service. For example, Some striking features of this app are that it does not require any subscription, once downloaded, no need for an internet connection, too. You should download the app and check its magical features.

Online Rating – not yet given

Conclusion

Digital health adoption is not a choice anymore rather a big necessity. Healthcare apps in India are crusading the healthcare industry with their massive digital capabilities that not only facilitate remote patient care but supporting the healthcare fraternity as a whole. The emergence of advanced digital technologies like IoMT, Blockchain. AI-ML, VR, and changing business models are playing a crucial role in driving the healthcare app-market in India.

Whether you are a Start-Up, Doctor, Lab, or Hospital Owner, we have a comprehensive range of healthcare solutions and apps that can aptly cover your end- to- ends needs. To know more, talk to our experts today.

Do you know technology innovations that you see today live were once considered mere science fiction taking you to the fantasy world? Thanks to the advent of digital technologies like Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine learning (ML) which are transforming industries like never before. The healthcare industry is leveraging the power of digital in all its segments including pharmacy. The World’s Pharmacists Day is being celebrated on the 25^th of September,2021, and the theme is “Pharmacy – Always trusted for your health” says Sandra Leal, President, American Pharmacists Association (sources- FIP & LinkedIn). Surely, this trust cannot be attained without digital interventions and indomitable AI. Let’s see today, how AI is transforming the Pharmaceutical industry with its massive use-cases and invincible appeal!

Pharmacy – Always trusted for your health

– Sandra Leal

1. Discovery & Development of Drugs

AI-ML-led algorithmic and computational advancements have accelerated the process of drug discovery and its development. The technology is resulting in a huge time saving concerning drug approval and its market reach as well as in the reduction of animal testings during clinical trials. Combined with Data Science tools and techniques AI-powered biomarker ensures a drug’s sensitivity, and robustness as well as validates results using in-silico models.

2. Creating Personalized Medicine

AI-ML-powered personalized medicine is one of the striking use-cases of AI in the Pharmaceutical industry. The technology can process, integrate a huge amount of data (structured, unstructured) information from varied sources and this happens to be the key requirement for creating personalized medicine.  For this, the mining process of myriad levels of information at an individual scale, as well as at a global scale, is done that facilitates effective, efficient treatments at an individual level. AI’s role in this domain can be estimated from the fact that how a continuous analysis becomes possible for treatment progress which allows a timely adjustment of the dosing of drugs, thereby increasing its efficacy and safety parameters of the treatment itself!

3. Optimizing Operations

AI is helping automating tasks at the operational levels in the pharma industry. Smart automation of varied processes reduces time paving way for more complex tasks that are urgent. For instance, automation of a patient’s reminder, follow-ups is a big beneficial AI usage. AI-powered remote monitoring facilitates timely intervention during a treatment plan in case of drugs not working efficiently, thus addressing drug adherence issues properly on time.  Another striking AI use case under operational optimization is that to read, clean, and analyze structured/unstructured data like doctors’ notes, patients’  records, prescriptions, etc.  It’s a noteworthy point that continuous medical follow-ups generate a  large magnitude of personalized data that can be effectively harvested to procure desired outcomes.

4. Genome Editing Research

Genome editing can be understood as a method that allows scientists to change the DNA of several organisms that include animals, plants, and bacteria. Editing of  DNA can lead to certain changes in physical attributes such as the color of the eye, disease risk, etc. Artificial Intelligence or AI technology is increasing its foothold in this domain, too, as it is making genome editing initiatives accurate, safe as well as cheaper than before. Researchers are using AI for gene editing that helps them to minimize any potentially damaging effects(off-target effects). Several renowned research institutes like MIT, Broad Institute, are researching the advancement of AI-powered gene-editing technology and its further applications.

5. Diagnosing Diseases

AI-based ML algorithms and approaches help to overcome several intricate limitations rampant across the pharma sector. Limitations exist in the form of incomplete patients’ records, unfulfilled medical history, overlapping casual symptoms, etc. and these can be addressed using supervised, unsupervised AI-ML approaches. Unsupervised ML helps to change the manner diseases get classified. Harvesting AI ability for analyzing vast data sources, data types like clinical records, imaging, omics, biological events, etc. facilitates efficiency in the process overall.

Conclusion

AI is transforming the pharmaceutical industry through its immense capability of optimizing huge volumes of data and information, enhancing R&D, designing to development aspect of the entire drug life cycle. Undoubtedly, AI is leading the pharma industry to a new era of innovation addressing the core issues of declining ROI, cybersecurity, data regulations, transparency, etc. It is indeed simplifying the overall complex nature of the system itself while facilitating companies towards attaining business goals.

Are you into a pharmaceutical business and wondering how AI can boost your business returns? Contact our experts.

Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, digital technologies have taken a front seat in businesses across industries globally. The healthcare industry is harnessing the massive potential of digital in response to the pandemic, leveraging billions of online datasets, mobile phones, and connected devices. AI-ML NLP advances and varied other technological capabilities have made inevitable inroads into the lives of people, and healthcare businesses across platforms. The entire perception has transformed about healthcare and its massive appeal and consumers have undergone a major awakening in terms of being healthy via digital adoption. Covid-led unprecedented public health emergency has unfurled few things – Wider technological dependence with greater emphasis on remote-care, preventive measures while protecting personal data, adhering to privacy norms.COVID-19 pandemic is now acting as the biggest transformation catalyst in the consumers’ behavior and businesses involved in the healthcare sector. Let’s explore briefly but precisely!

1. Telemedicine

Covid-19 has created a paradigm shift in the healthcare sector,  focusing on virtual setups and remote treatment of patients. People got confined to homes and getting ill meant consulting a doctor on a digital platform. Several telemedicine apps have come to the fore and are surging on a greater scale today. Telemedicine is allowing healthcare providers to deliver healthcare services remotely. Technology is playing the main role, and remote patient care, online consultation, virtual treatment,home-diagnostics, etc. are helping people immensely. People are happy with telemedicine procedures and the healthcare fraternity, too. This acceptance is leading to massive adoption of digital technologies like AI, Robotics, IoT, Blockchain, etc. for creating modern telemedicine apps, solutions, and tools.

2. On-Demand Pharmacy

Consumers and healthcare businesses both leveraged the power of digital and resorted to mobile phones for specific apps, online pharmacy, and on-demand medicine delivery solutions. As per market research conducted by Zion Market research, the e-pharmacy market is estimated to grow to USD 107.53 B by the end of 2025. Pharmacy businesses have started adopting selected models as per requirement, viz., they can go for medicine delivery app for single-store, or can go for an aggregator medicine delivery app development type, or direct-to-customer type of customized app model. COVID-19 has opened up these avenues abundantly from business perspectives as well as consumers’ convenience and demand.

3. Health Insurance App Surge

The demand for health insurance rose in COVID times. People realized the importance of their health safety leading to a surge in demand for the coverup, Covid cover in particular. Health Insurers have come up with specialized mobile apps that are helping customers across b2b and b2c segments in the healthcare industry. As per a recent  Statista Report, there were 218 billion mobile apps download by consumers,  to their connected devices, in 2020 alone. So, mobile applications are benefitting consumers and insurance companies alike. Digital capabilities-led Insurance Mobile Apps allow three major types of functionalities-

• Functionality for healthcare providers – Allows direct access to patients’ histories, valuable doctor-patient communication.

• Functionality for Patients – Allows searchingfor doctors, accessing related documents as well as receiving timely reminders.

• Functionality for choosing as well as purchasing insurance policies– Allows users in choosing and purchasing perfect health insurance plans, even renew the existing policies. This functionality also includes in-app payments, communicating with insurance agents, and so on.

4. Shift to Healthy Lifestyle

People have realized the importance of Eating Healthy, Living Healthy. The COVID-19 has alarmed them that how a weak immune system can cost precious lives.   Immunity boosting has become their priority over the past two years and resorting to their 24*7 companion, mobile devices, for varied nutrition apps. Nutrition mobile apps help to track nutrition intakes and calorie counts, having an enormous database containing food insights, recipe importer, barcode scanner, restaurant logger, and a lot more.  These powerhouse apps help to monitor nutrition levels, weight balance, warning alerts for bad food habits, planning meals with nutrition facts, extracting insights based on personal data, etc. AI-ML-powered virtual apps help to provide personalized recommendations and have a multilingual platform.

5. Virtual Fitness

Fitness and wellness form the core of the healthcare industry. Fitness facilities shut down quickly after the pandemic struck at the onset of 2020. Amidst lockdowns, gyms and fitness centers had to close down for an unlimited period. Non-essential workers stayed at home which limited their fitness options and this triggered the rise of virtual fitness apps. Technology in the form of IoT-Sensor powered mobile apps, youtube videos are enabling people to get a long-term workout plan at home itself. Whether it is for losing weight or building strength,easy-to-follow video workout guides, a fitness app helps to track, map all runs and allows to log in to more than 500 activities (customized apps) like gym workouts, cycling, yoga, walking, cross-training, etc. The app provides a gear tracker that tracks mileage and can connect to varied devices to import, analyze personal data for regular guidance.

6. Realization on Logistics Challenge

One of the biggest challenges that surfaced during the pandemic was the lack of adequate logistics and inventory management systems. During the entire  COVID-19 pandemic, shortages in medical oxygen greatly affected hospitals in  India, Brazil, Nigeria, Peru, Italy, and even the US. Lack of timely supply of oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, oxygen generators, etc. proved fatal to many COVID patients who succumbed because oxygen was not available on time. In the wake of this challenge, many companies chipped in and started resorting to mobile and web app-based digital tracking systems. This trend has picked momentum and there’s been a big boost in the web & mobile app development dealing with logistics and inventory solutions.

Health is Wealth via Technology

From 2020 onward, the world is seeing a major surge in healthcare technologies. Artificial Intelligence – IoT-powered telemedicine apps, virtual healthcare, remote patient-monitoring, self-care, etc. have picked momentum. People are opting for mobile apps to seek healthcare solutions at competitive costs. Virtual healthcare can deal with all health problems, with this realization the healthcare industry has started evolving at an unabated pace leveraging digital technologies across the ecosystem.

How healthcare has evolved for you? As healthcare applications and integrated technology get more accessible, it’s time businesses start investing in real transformation. Speak to our experts today!

Just the other day India celebrated her 75^th Independence day, a glorious moment for the largest democracy in the world. Industry leaders unanimously cheered India for being resilient in Covid times and how healthcare has revamped over the years. On 15^th August 2021, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the Executive Chairperson, Biocon & Biocon Biologics, said, “Technology can be a game-changer for the Indian health sector….The digital health ID initiative can help India develop a universal healthcare system based on electronic health records (EHRs) and e-Health Centres...”(source – IANS). Currently, India’s healthcare industry stands beyond mere hospitals! It incorporates huge medical equipment, devices, telemedicine, clinical trials, medical tourism, health insurance, and more. The Blockchain-led Electronic Health Record(EHR) with AI-based add-ons, is allowing the Indian Healthcare industry to be more patient-centric, promising privacy, security, interoperability of health data in the ecosystem.

What is EHR

EHR is the abbreviated form of Electronic Health Records. EHR is considered to be a comprehensive, detailed health report of an individual which is available in the digital format. Thus, EHRs (Electronic Health Records)are the digital version of patients’ records in real-time. It helps in tracking the clinical progress of a patient and helps to facilitate an improved, evidence-based healthcare decision and care eventually. An EHR consists of the demographics of a patient, his progress notes, medications, problems and vital signs, allergies, immunizations, past medical records/history, radiology reports, laboratory data, and so on. It includes detailed information about a patient’s health profile, traditional health record, behavioral as well as environmental information which is electronically/digitally entered by the healthcare providers throughout his lifetime.

EHR is different from EMR

Though both the terms are often used interchangeably, Electronic Health Records(EHR) are different from Electronic Medical Records (EMR). An EMR is just the digital version of the paper records of medical history about a patient, recorded within a clinician’s place/office. EMR is not shared outside of that clinician’s office. On the other hand, an EHR is a detailed collection of multiple medical records, a comprehensive report of a person’s health journey over the years during lifetime.EHR report is exclusively designed to be shared beyond a healthcare organization, anytime, anywhere.

EHR BENEFITS

1. Hospitals

Hospitals are one of the major beneficiaries of EHRs. Varied departments can access EHR records anytime. For example, a doctor, physician, lab person may need a particular patient’s records for their specific purposes. They‘d just start their system, enter that patient’s id and access required information immediately.No hassles for searching non-digital documents, papers, etc. Thus, hospitals leverage EHR benefits in the following manner:

• Better quality care
• Access to accurate patient information whenever required
• Increased level of interoperability
• Enhanced efficiency & productivity
• Increased Revenues/higher ROI
• Advanced level of data security

2. Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry (pharma industry) is purely an information intense business. The industry relies on adequate information utilizing them for effectively developing and delivering medicines to patient populations across the country. EHR helps the pharma industry in:

1. Audit-Medication Workflow
2. Data Collection for clinical trials
3. Clinical-trial recruitment
4. Managing documents during clinical trials
5. Drug-safety surveillance
6. Real-time insights supporting decision-making

Thus, EHR helps a pharma company throughout a product’s lifecycle viz., from preclinical to post-marketing phases.

3. Clinical Research & Development

EHRs are providing enhanced opportunities for the clinical research & development sector. EHRs that are interconnected through multiple healthcare networks have the massive potential to prove in research platforms, too. They help in:

• Optimizing varied  clinical trial protocols
• Facilitating patient identification, recruitment
• Providing state-of-the-art security
• Does not require any specific extraction of patient-level data from clinics, hospitals

4. Patients

Healthcare teams face a major challenge while dealing with patients’ data and keeping them safe.EHRs help patients to see their data exclusively through their unique identity and access authorization. They keep track of the detail like who has accessed data before, what time, how many times, and what did the individual do while accessing those records. EHRs keep all information safe from anyone who doesn’t have authorized access to see patients’ data. Thus, EHRS help Patients:

• Have access through own EHRs with unique patient portal
• Can read, or print, or send their health data/information to doctors, health insurers, etc.
• Are empowered to be their own advocates
• Better informed through updated medical records

5. Clinicians

Illegibility of medical prescriptions is a major challenge. This leads to medication errors. Thus, clinicians benefit from EHRS in:

• Managing medications
• Improved patient outcomes
• In reducing adverse drug events as a wrong medication is avoided (via integrating with bar code scanning technology)
• Timely reporting of clinical details
• In determining when to repeat a lab test
• In viewing actual radiology results
• Being cost-effective

Government of India’s EHR initiatives

Introducing  EHR Standards

In September 2013, the MoH&FW ( Ministry of Health & Family Welfare) introduced EHR standards in India. These standards were based on the Ministry’s EMR Standards Committee’s recommendations contained in a detailed document. It was for the first time mentioned that a uniform system for EHRs should be created and maintained by varied healthcare providers.

Goals  of EHR Standards

• To promote interoperability
• To support this evolution, and ensuring the standards that are being adopted are maintained on time
• To promote technical. digital innovations
• To encourage all the stakeholders, vendors for active participation
• To reduce implementation costs to the minimum level
• To plan, consider EHR best practices, policies, experiences, frameworks
• To promote adopting standards that are not interdependent but modular

Thus, the Indian government has clearly emphasized the need for EHR standards because, without them, interoperability of medical records can hardly be achieved!

Challenges & Solutions

Challenges –There are varied challenges that occur during varying levels of the development as well as the implementation of EHRs. It needs an adequate level of capital investment, funding,  a well-trained, adequate manpower like doctors, health consultants, IT experts, educators, etc. To keep patients’ records secure is a  big challenge while implementing an EHR. Then, misusing databases, cyber-security threats, ensuring the confidentiality of records while authorizing access to the correct users, etc. are big challenges that EHR implementation is facing in the country.

Solutions – Measures like the following ones can help for a smooth implementation of EHRs in the country:

• Making data password protected
• Cloud Storage, encryption can address issues related to EHR’s security
• Security measures such as Firewalls, antivirus software, etc. for data integrity
• Consulting a reliable EHR development organization
• Designing a user-friendly interface
• Appropriate investment for quality EHR practices ensuring seamless experience amongst stakeholders
• Increasing awareness of protocols regarding the overall security of health information
• Constant,24*7 reliable data monitoring using digital tools & technologies

Bottomline

In India, the development, implementation of EHRs ( Electronic Health Records ) are lying in varied fragmented stages. It is noteworthy that the challenges need to be adequately addressed using relevant digital tools and technologies and only a reliable, leading IT development agency can provide the perfect solutions apt for a healthcare organization. Moreover, the COVID 19 pandemic has already underlined the urgent requirement for a better, more resilient healthcare system across the country. Transforming every stage of healthcare delivery needs an adequate technology deployment making it more accessible, effective, empowering, and satisfying to the core.

Are you a healthcare organization, hospital, clinic, or an entrepreneur in India looking to tap into EHR Applications? Contact us to know more.