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The technological transformation has had an impact on various sectors, especially healthcare. The technology has been paving a digital route in the medical field starting from patient registration to smart diagnosis.
As per the research by WHO, the digital transformation has increased the life expectancy of a newborn in 2013 compared to the ones born 25 years earlier. Among the achievements of digital transformation in the healthcare field, the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) has been considered as the milestone. When it is an EMR, the patients undergo the test without any second thoughts. After the wide acceptance of EMRs in the healthcare field, telemedicine, IoT, wearables, and robots have entered the healthcare landscape.
Telehealth has been empowering the patients in remote locations. In 2015, the number of telehealth patients was around 1 million. It increased drastically to around 7 million in the year 2018. Telehealth saves time for both the patient and the physician. The patients can have suggestions and medical advice from specialists. There are zillions of telemedicine apps that help patients to clear their doubts. In some cases, people are scared due to the unusual symptoms they experience in a day. With the advancements telehealth, they can now get essential information about the reason behind the symptoms.
In the same way, AI in the medical field has reduced the waiting time for test results. Thereby, patients can also get diagnosed with their problems and treated soon. Early diagnosis and treatment remain priority factors. Using blockchain technology, a patient’s test report can be remotely generated. Remote patient monitoring has also become way easier owing to these advancements.
The blockchain technology can help the patients to show the complete medical history to the specialist they choose. Blockchain safeguards the digital health records uploaded in the patient’s account. In critical cases like heart surgeries, doctors can have an augmented reality solution to ensure that the operation is successful. Both AR and VR are capable of retrieving memories for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.
Digital Twin in healthcare helps the providers to experiment the virtual version of the system in a safe environment. The digital data will continue to increase in the year 2019, and these technologies will pave the way for data security, better care delivery, and improved productivity for providers.