Benefits of Digital Health Technology in Managing COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic, which first surfaced in early 2020, has quickly escalated into one of the world’s most significant health catastrophes. 

As a result of this danger, various digital health tools have been deployed worldwide to improve COVID-19 surveillance, risk communication, diagnosis, and treatment. 

Despite several issues, digital health is projected to aid in reducing pandemic transmission, the improvement of pandemic control efficacy, and radical change in the health system in the post-COVID age. 

The favorable impact of these technologies may help to speed up the acceptance and importance of digital innovation in healthcare. However, such innovation must balance with the necessity for continued safety.

Although digital health has provided significant benefits in the battle against COVID-19, there are still several limitations to digital health applications.

What is digital health technology?

It’s not new to use information and communication technology to give digital health treatments to prevent disease and improve quality of life in global challenges such as aging, child sickness, death, epidemics and pandemics, and high prices. 

The consequences of poverty and racial prejudice on healthcare access, digital health platforms, health systems, and associated technologies continue to increase in relevance and adapt.

Why is digital health important?

More than simple technology and techniques are employed in digital health. But, according to the organization, secure platforms are fundamental to the promise of more consumer-focused, prevention-oriented treatment. 

It is possible with radically interoperable data and artificial intelligence. AI, big data, robots, and machine learning are all driving significant developments in digital healthcare. 

In addition, changes in the digital healthcare sector are continuing to produce ingestible sensors, robotic caregivers, and gadgets and applications to monitor patients remotely. intelyConnect offers a no-code and low-code approach to healthcare data integration and interoperability. 

How digital health technology manages COVID-19?

Pandemic management and control pose a unique challenge to health systems because emerging infectious illnesses can spread quickly, necessitating an emphasis on early identification and treatment, monitoring, and outbreak control. 

Artificial intelligence, telemedicine, mobile health, big data, 5G, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are digital health technologies that might help with pandemic containment.

Some real-time points to manage COVID-19 digitally:

• Sharing health information and reducing pandemic risk.
• During an outbreak, early testing, isolation, and treatment are essential.
• Reducing psychological stress with remote consulting.
• Reduce overcrowding in health-care facilities and caregiver exhaustion.

Benefits of digital health technology in managing COVID-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had catastrophic social, economic, and political consequences, putting pressure on governments to act quickly to contain the outbreak. In this scenario, digital health technology aids in the management of COVID-19.

Digital health technologies aid physical contactless communication between patients and physicians. 

There are several advantages of using digital health technology to deal with the COVID-19 situation:

• Keeping an eye on the coronavirus epidemic:

By giving an early warning of probable infection, digital health technology can aid in managing the pandemic. Many public health authorities limit test eligibility to symptomatic patients and healthcare staff. 

Furthermore, there is a time lag between the start of physical symptoms and the receiving of findings, assuming the infected individual can have a diagnostic test.

Read also: Impact of Covid-19 on the Society

• Healthcare that is both responsive and long-term:

With longer life expectancies, an increase in the number of people living with chronic diseases. It raises healthcare expenses; healthcare systems worldwide are under increasing strain. 

In addition, there is an increasing trend toward digital health techniques in healthcare. As a result, patients have faster access to health services thanks to digital health platforms, which improves the quality of treatment they get. 

Simultaneously, by pioneering the concept of patient self-care, these platforms assist in alleviating the strain on health care institutions.

• Keeping an eye on hospital visitors and patients:

Artificial intelligence is also being used in hospitals worldwide to assist medical workers in screening visitors and treating sick patients. In addition, hospitals can access digital health technologies to better track and control the coronavirus outbreak. 

Medical institutions can use remote monitoring, another type of artificial intelligence technology, to safeguard employees and closely monitor patients. 

Staff at the hospital may then keep an eye on the patients remotely and be informed of any changes in their health. This technology lowers the virus’s exposure to medical professionals and benefits patients by boosting the quality of care.

• Spread prevention before treatment:

Through regular monitoring and tracking of symptoms, digital health technologies assist individuals in self-managing their health issues. 

More crucially, it’s a tool for detecting substantial changes in a patient’s disease development early on before lung health is irrevocably harmed. 

Patients with respiratory diseases and those classed as ‘at risk’ would benefit greatly from digital health platforms.

• The patient-doctor interaction is being remodeled:

Patients and their healthcare professionals collaborate on digital health systems, making them co-designers of their care and treatment programs. 

The sense of cooperation, trust, and transparency between patient and doctor is enhanced through immediate, direct, and shared access to the patient’s current health state. 

Important health aspects such as the time of day, environmental stimulants, prescription usage, and medication adherence may be documented in real-time and utilized to offer a clear picture of the patient’s condition’s sensitivity.

• Increasing the number of people who can get healthcare:

The goal of digital health technologies is to lessen the administrative load and other monotonous parts of healthcare professionals’ duties. It allows them to spend more time with patients and monitor them. 

It is especially crucial for patients or clinics in remote locations, and home-care/outpatients who travel is difficult or not advised. In addition, patients with clinical-grade technology in their pockets may give their health information to their doctor.

• Bringing the platform up:

Access to low-cost medical technology in clinics minimizes both the clinic’s and patients’ financial constraints associated with illness management. 

Many digital health platforms also serve as a portal to online communities where patients may get support and connect with others dealing with similar health problems.

When it comes to respiratory ailments, digital health systems have a lot of advantages. Telehealth simplifies and streamlines the monitoring of these disorders. In addition, the ability to conduct spirometry testing on a virtual platform reduces the strain on healthcare providers and patients.

• Telemedicine:

The epidemic has posed several obstacles in terms of healthcare delivery. Redirecting healthcare resources to battle the epidemic has burdened various other healthcare services.

Aggressive control tactics, such as social separation, city lockdown, and hospital closures, on the other hand, have severely hampered people’s access to health care.

As a country, we bear a double burden of sickness, with non-communicable diseases accounting for ten of the top twelve causes of mortality. In the context of the COVID-19 epidemic, the strain on the health system to deliver services is increasing.

Simultaneously, many patients with respiratory complaints put a lot of emphasis on COVID-19 testing and screening. These difficulties have compelled the healthcare sector to adapt to preserve service delivery.

• Supporting diagnosis and treatment with artificial intelligence:

The eHealth Administration officially debuted a virtual assistant (chatbot) on COVID-19 on February 14, 2020. The virtual assistant is built on artificial intelligence technologies and can provide automatic, continuous real-time responses. 

It allows numerous users to ask and answer queries about COVID-19-related information concurrently.

• Decision-making aids based on data visualization:

In the pandemic, data dashboards are being utilized extensively to collect real-time public-health data, such as confirmed cases, fatalities, and testing statistics, to keep the public informed and assist policymakers in refining measures. 

COVID-19 dashboards often feature time-series charts and geographic maps, with information ranging from regional statistics to case-level coordinates. 

Several dashboards display broader pandemic reactions, including therapeutic research, legislative and economic measures, and responses to social-discrimination guidelines. 

Data on contact tracking or community surveillance from applications and their efficacy are rarely included in dashboards.

Conclusion:

The lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic should be used in future digital health technologies to aid in pandemic response. The future development of digital health solutions should be designed with this primary “client” in mind. 

Furthermore, technology solutions should not be developed or evaluated in a vacuum; they must co-evolve with the people who will be affected by the solution. Let intely handle the complexities of workflows, data integration & healthcare interoperability.

intelyConnect helps you with digital health technology. We provide a solution in the best fit technology for your organization.