In the hyper-aware, hyper-connected, and fast-paced life of today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay on top of your health. However, we are experiencing a swift revolution in medical technologies that is altering our interaction with healthcare.
This can only be possible if your healthcare routine is more than just a yearly appointment with the doctor but an intelligent data-backed conversation that happens daily. This is what the smart healthcare gadgets are accomplishing.
Before we divulge that subject a little more, let’s talk about where the internet comes into this. These app-run smart devices often operate on a strong internet connection. When it comes to your health, you cannot have patchy connectivity. Comcast Xfinity are the unsung hero that provides a strong foundation for this endeavor at affordable rates.
As diseases are evolving to become more and more complex, the medical industry is trying to combat them with more complex solutions. These solutions are communicative, intelligent, and powered by connectivity.
Smart thermometers
One of the most widely celebrated inventions during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was app-controlled smart thermometers. The manufacturing company, Kinsa, publicized the cumulative data while protecting user privacy. This was instrumental in locating areas of temperature spikes that were hotbeds of infection.
This goes on to show that the application of smart health devices is not constrained to an individual level but also on a collective regional or national level. We can predict healthcare trends and patterns in flu seasons and more.
Healthcare strategists can compare any anomalous data with previously existing data obtained in normalcy to locate any potential threats within a community. Additionally, apps with these smart thermometers can also give suggestions for a temperature disturbance considering your age, and symptoms.
Connected Inhalers
There are diseases like obstructive sleep apnea, COPD, and asthma, that can be easily cared for by sticking to your treatment plan. However, it can just as easily go south if patient monitoring is negligent. Two out of three asthma-related deaths can be prevented easily with the help of personalized treatment plans, timely check-ups, and medication adjusted to condition severity.
This gave way to the technology of smart inhalers. With accompanying apps, you can determine to track your medication timing and dosage. Not only do they ensure that you are religiously sticking to your treatment plan through alarms etc., but they also give you guidance on disease management, and inhaling techniques, and give you insights on factors that may aggravate your condition like allergen forecasts.
These inhalers also provide aggregate user data for the physician to review. In light of this data, physicians can better manage the treatment plan of the patient and adjust medication. Additionally, they can also identify the points in time the condition is aggravated to determine the stressors.
Automated Insulin Delivery (AID) Systems
Also called artificial pancreas closed-loop insulin delivery, this technology is truly a breakthrough for insulin-dependent diabetics who make up 8.5% of adults around the globe. AID works on a combination of continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps.
Finger prick tests can be unpleasant and cumbersome. So is the intravenous administration of insulin. With AID, the equipment constantly measures your blood glucose levels and automatically administers the required levels of insulin constantly.
Hand hygiene monitoring
Medical facilities are riddled with contagions. A handy device called the hand hygiene monitor reminds people entering and exiting the facility to wash and disinfect their hands. It also gives actionable instructions on how to mitigate the risk of a particular disease and what sanitation technique should be used for them.
Heart-rate monitoring
For heart patients, constant heart rate monitoring is imperative considering that the fluctuations can be alarming. Conventional heart monitoring devices are clunky and not practical for daily use. You can only use them while admitted to a hospital. This hospitalization tends to interfere with the quality of life.
There are now smart devices for monitoring the detailed matrices of your heart health. These monitors can also be connected to your pacemakers. This allows the patient free mobility along with continuous monitoring. The challenge, however, is the accuracy of results. This can be fine-tuned as the technology advances.
Depression and mood monitoring
People with chronic mental health issues also need constant monitoring to identify their triggers. This data is difficult to collect consistently. There is also the factor of patients not having accurate feedback.
Mood-aware smart devices help eliminate this challenge by gathering and reviewing data like heart rate and blood pressure to deduce results about a patient’s mental well-being and help curate a treatment plan personalized to their conditions, e.g. evaluate the efficacy of a particular drug, etc.
While all of these advancements are largely beneficial for mankind, there is an increasing fear of rogue technology and privacy breaches. As TechHealth sectors are working on these transformations, they are also focusing on the anticipated negative impacts these devices could create and finding antidotes to them. It is not a very distant dream to re-imagine healthcare as more sophisticated and connected than it currently is.