Digital revolution- as some call it, has been definitely the most remarkable aspect of this century that has changed the face of virtually every industry it has touched and it has touched them all. Just pull out your smartphone and you’ll have to think of things it cannot do because there is very little that it can’t. But for now, let’s focus on an industry that is seemingly very distant from mobility and yet in recent years has literally transformed every component of it- healthcare.
Before we go any further, it is worth noting that healthcare isn’t just about doctors diagnosing patients- it’s the central part of it but not whole. In fact, it can be better understood as a process that starts with not patients but for healthy individuals and stretches on to post-treatment care, enveloping everything in-between. So to grasp how deep an impact mobile apps have on the healthcare industry, let’s just follow the same process while keeping track of how each stage is supplemented or altered through these apps:
Fitness Tracking
As mentioned, healthcare starts with healthy individuals and the ton of applications that keep track of physical activities, calories burned, sleep patterns, among others, can be considered the first line of defense. And these applications aren’t just for the tech savvy for real-time information but the data they collect over time also serves as an important tool in the further course of diagnosis.
Booking Appointments
Making use of yellow pages to find out the contact details of doctors / simply to book an appointment with them has taken back seat nowadays. Patients can find specialist doctors, pay for the consultation, and even see the reviews of other patients on such applications, thus making the entire process transparent and streamlined.
WeMa is one such application that lets patients find domiciliary care, personal care, nursing, nutritionist, fitness trainer, and much more.
Diagnosis
And not just booking appointments, there are apps available that facilitate the actual consultation as well. For non-critical problems, these applications provide an interface for doctors to consult with their patients remotely, thus eliminating the geographical factor from healthcare entirely.
Prescription Management
Losing track of their prescription and dosage is one of the most common problems seen among patients and to address that problem, there too are mobile apps. These applications can automatically reorder the prescription and get them delivered by keeping track of dosages and quantity.
Echo is one such application that offers the same functionality across the UK and it also lets patients scan the barcode on prescription to get the dosage instructions in case they forgot.
Patient Training
For most of the patients suffering from critical problems, hospital visits are all too frequent partly because of ignorance or misinformation once they get back home. To tackle this issue, there are informative mobile apps available that teach patients post-treatment care, thus preventing the condition from complicating any further.
Corrie is one such iPhone app that trains cardiology patients after hospital discharge and has proven to reduce re-hospitalization rates.
Addiction Alleviation
Recently, some Android application development companies gained quite a popularity for creating applications that alleviated smartphone addiction because apparently, that is also a kind of addiction these days. But even for more serious addictions like drugs and alcohol, there are apps like Hayver that incorporate detailed verification, prescribes random urine tests, and compiles a detailed report of the progress. If that isn’t enough, Android application development companies these days deploy Blockchain technology for keeping the records- making it completely transparent and guaranteeing its authenticity.