How mobile phones are helping medical professionals
Mobile phones are easy to carry around. They are basically used for communication and for other activities such as taking pictures, but they are useful in medical field. Do you know how they have been helpful to doctors and their patients?
Mobile phones are helping medical care in many ways. The use of mobile phones has extended beyond the communication and texting and other little activities. It has gone beyond that. Now, mobile phones are a blessing in executing medical care. Health is wealth. With the blending of mobile phones into the discharge of medical care, that means health which is wealth can be monitored and managed as long as one has mobile phone.
In this post we are detailing on how the mobile phone has positively influence healthcare, and focus little on the negative influence. Talking about the positives, many notable things have been achieved with the use of mobile phones and that have simplified the process of receiving health care. Here, these have all been categorized.
Introduction of Mobile Apps that are Helpful
Numbers of mobile apps exist that are raving in the world of health care. They help patients simplify their search for medical care. They help doctors too, to simplify their jobs. Who says you have to visit a hospital to determine weight loss or gain? With apps such as iTriage, you can type in symptoms and it will bring forth some options you can click on. Mobile apps helping in the health sector include, but not limited to
iTriage
ZocDoc
eHealth
Doctor on Demand
Hula
The benefits of the apps range from connecting patients with doctors to providing or giving possible illness related to given symptoms. The development of these apps has brought things down and makes the consulting of doctors easy. The ZocDoc for example can be used to consult doctors from home to diagnose for as low as $40.
Ways in which mobile phones influence healthcare.
What are the ways in which mobile phones have been influencing health care?
Communication
It is observed that about 25% of physician use mobile phones to execute health care. It is a fast and simple method of communication and interaction between the doctors and their patients.
It helps further by boosting the relationship between the two. Think about it. After the medical check up, further complaints can be sent in through mobile phones and the physician can as well send follow-up mails to ascertain the effectiveness of treatment.
This way, the progress of the patient’s health condition is understood from hospital to homes without physical contact.
This is better than the old days when mobile phones are absent. Doctors can simply give advice over the phones, such as ‘please rest,’ instead of patient visiting again to hear it.
Also, we did mention mobile apps as tool for contacting doctors. Mobile apps such ZocDoc, Doctor on Demand can be used to consult doctors for diagnosing sickness when the patients are in the comfort of their homes. The patient will pick the app, search for the doctors in their locality and the process goes live on the mobile phones.
For minor cases, this is fine. Only in severe cases do they need to see and visit doctors. The method of communication in mobile phones include and not limited to voice capture, email, video conferencing, text messaging, and more
Monitoring Development
Mobile apps can monitor health status for new development. Personal health apps are the best for this purpose. They keep record of certain improvements and decline in health. Data, of course, are facts on which treatments and suggestions can be made. The recorded development can be used by doctors to know the patient’s health status and proffer new medical assistance or declare the patient as healthy. Also, with mobile phones, these statuses are easy to forward from the patient’s phone to the physician’s. Information is even more accurate and fast to receive. This, of course, has simplified the jobs of the health professionals. Mobile phones are doing part of it.
Awareness
This goes in many ways: A) the physician or medical practitioners can use mobile phones to broadcast important information to their patients especially on platforms such patient portal. B) The patients can use it to create urgent awareness to their doctors. C) Or patients to their families. D) Or physicians and fellow physicians. An example of creating awareness with the mobile phone is SIMpills app created by David Green. It was designed to alert and remind South Africans to use their medication. And this has helped to reduce the number of tuberculosis patient.
Furthermore, the invention of internet has made things simple. Think about Google. Information can be access on the go about any health issue. Also, information flies like storm. Think again about social media. In a minute or two, with mobile phones, an epidemic disease outbreak can be publicized and the cautions and prevention clearly stated for all to follow.
Research
Health professionals now use the data from mobile technologies as part of their research. These data, as we have mentioned, are easy to gather. The process has been simplified better than the old years of countless and tiring paperwork. Mobile apps and software are now available; they save files forever as they are recorded. This is more accurate method of conducting research and storing them. Just as they can be recorded on the go, with mobile phones, the accessibility of such stored researched data is possible on the go, anywhere.
Questionnaires, case studies, surveys etc.
This is the process of testing both the patients’ knowledge and the practitioners understanding of medical terms or issues. Mobile app such as Episurveyor is a tool that is used in carrying out survey so as to prevent the spread of epidemics. Such surveys are necessary for health professionals to execute campaigns and provide immunization as the case may be.
On the other hand: security risks are the challenges facing the use of mobile phones in health care. Personal information sent across platforms can be access by third parties and therefore proofing to be a security risk.
However, mobile phones manufacturers and its app designers are working towards solving this issue. For only that, mobile phones are helping medical professionals find their work easier and patients are at ease with access to good medical health care.