The Digital Wave Brings in Extreme Healthcare Procedure Transparency for Patients

Open Data

Efforts in open data can enhance health care delivery by increasing system openness and accountability and giving health users a voice and a more comprehensive range of provider options when the system enables it.

However, running an open data initiative in the healthcare industry is challenging. In the account of transparency, using open data as a problem-solving tool might have certain advantages.

The desire of healthcare to make data more accessible and to accept and act on concerns revealed by the data is the central enabling element for the digital wave towards transparent solutions and open health data to perform appropriately.

Blockchain

A digital ledger or a computerized database of transactions is referred to as a blockchain. It can potentially change how electronic health records are maintained and exchanged for patients. It allows health information exchange (HIE) of medical data across a decentralized peer-to-peer network with safety, privacy, and interoperability methods.

This technology's sharing and trust mechanism offer a potential solution for data sharing, allowing for interactive patient care in telehealth and personalized medicine. In addition to this, electronic health records provide patients with all the needed details from diagnosis to treatment and post-op care (for surgical procedures).

Digital transformation has knocked in the best efforts of delivering healthcare and patients with advanced facilities that help them keep in check the provided healthcare procedures. Moreover, this allows for a comprehensive handover to the next treatment specialist.

Suppose a neurologist diagnoses a patient with a ruptured aneurysm, then the patient is referred to a neurosurgeon for the procedure. With the electronic records in place, the surgeon will have all the information in handy, such as imaging scans, to operate.

IoMT

Over 3.7 million medical devices are in use, connected to patients, like LVAD devices, helping to monitor patients to help doctors make better judgments. The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a networked system of medical devices and apps that gather data and send it to healthcare IT systems through the internet.

The IoMT assist caregivers in monitoring, informing, and notifying them. It also offers healthcare practitioners actual data to identify concerns before they become serious, allowing for early prognosis.

IoMT allows for remote diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of a patient's health, reducing the need for routine office visits and checks. For patients to look after themselves, they should spend more time at home rather than in a hospital.

Telemedicine

Information technology has halved the cost of transmitting ideas across national borders to drive outsourcing and accelerate growth in emerging nations like India. Much as industrialization and improved transportation did over a century ago and altered established economies.

The same technology, if used correctly, may assist India in filling financing, infrastructural, and human resource shortages not only within the nation but also throughout the region and around the world. It is taking place, but not quickly enough.

Telemedicine provides health-related services via communication technologies such as phones and computers. While these solutions cannot be used to substitute emergency treatment or appointments involving needles or physical tests, they can address minor medical issues. Telemedicine also promotes long-term patient outcomes and cost savings across the healthcare system.

Interoperability

Hundreds of EHR systems are available, and most hospitals use at least ten of them. The demand for health systems to electronically record and store clinical data expanded. They became the norm as the industry understood the benefits of improved coordination of treatment via health systems.

Each stage of a patient's journey may now be hastened because of technological advancements and interoperability. This extends beyond record-keeping, with electronic prior authorization (EPA) solutions managing the complex prior authorization (PA) procedure and real-time benefit check (RTBC) systems providing doctors with prescription decision assistance.

Accessibility and adoption of these technologies will improve even further due to interoperability and network convergence.

Scope of Digital Wave for Medical Practices

The quality of patient care, infrastructure, educated personnel, doctor-patient communication, system transparency, and operational efficiency are all factors that influence the patient's result.

To successfully combat human mistakes, providers should focus on – implementing technological infrastructure, emphasizing patient safety, encouraging a high-reliability culture, promoting multidisciplinary collaboration, and so on.

To improve practice workflow, providers should invest in the most up-to-date technical infrastructure and teach their personnel how to utilize it in the most effective, accurate, and timely manner possible.