It’s incredible that, even in the space of the last few years, the face of the healthcare industry has changed unimaginably. Medicine has always progressed and improved, continuously growing safer, more effective and more advanced with every passing century, but technology has accelerated this process astronomically. Now medicine and the healthcare provided to each and every one of us is not only improving with each passing year, but extending to a growing number of the world’s population with each passing year.
As a doctor, surgeon, nurse, practitioner or any professional working in the medical industry, their work has become so much easier. Technology has opened up endless possibilities and made the healthcare they can provide so much more efficient, which is the answer medical professionals need when faced with insurmountable issues with patients. If you’re wondering how specifically technology is keeping healthcare in check, let’s look at just a few of the ways in which the modern, computerized era has revolutionized the medical care we all receive, making things better for patients and doctors alike.
Real-time locating technology
This has been an absolute godsend to the medical world. Tracking devices have improved efficiency around numerous hospitals in that they’ve helped to turn a frantic and chaotic environment into a neat, organiZed and well-structured machine. Hospitals are full of huge numbers of people at any given point of the day, and, no matter how skilled their medical staff may be, things can become a little unorganized and messy without an overall view of the operation of a hospital.
The highly skilled staff of a hospital have been proven to work much better when using real-time location services technology because this incredible kit helps hospitals to keep data on staff, instruments and devices around the hospital to see which resources and people are operating within which sectors of the hospital. If things need to be moved around to improve efficiency, this can easily be done. Tracking technology has achieved what would be impossible with the human eye alone.
Technology is making work easier
As a nurse or a doctor working in a hospital in the modern age, the sheer amount of patients and the workload with which they must contend is enough to drive anybody insane. Luckily, technology has completely transformed the workplace in hospitals for all manner of staff working there. Communication has been made easier than ever before, for starters. Specialized applications for phones have been designed purely for the use of medical staff in the hospital environment, working as an advanced “pager” of sorts to alert workers of any issues with patients.
It’s obviously much more efficient than a pager because hospital staff can communicate via instant text messages, as well. Rather than using personal means of communication, which would be inappropriate in a work environment, having a specific communication channel dedicated to patient-related alarms and any important conversations regarding issues in the hospital means that staff can communicate without having to run all over the hospital to find their colleagues. If you’re considering a career which improves by the day, there are more nursing salaries and roles out there than there have been in a long time, given frequent shortages across the industry. It’s never been a better time to start a medical career, as technology is making the role easier than ever in a practical sense. Mentally, of course, you’ll need to have the same knowledge and determination as has always been required of the medical profession.
Medical knowledge can reach every corner of the earth
Technology, through telemedicine, has opened up the doors of medicine to greater numbers of people in remote areas of the world. In rural areas, many people for many decades have struggled to gain access to the busy hospitals in urban cities or even their local towns. This was a harsh fact of life for many people, but the wonders of modern technology are starting to turn the tide in a better direction for humanity as a race. Telemedicine has given doctors the ability to help patients from the comfort of their own homes.
Digital communication has completely transformed the face of healthcare because people no longer have to travel from remote locations to get the help they need from a doctor in the flesh. They can now get the advice they need via internet and other forms of communication. The internet doesn’t just help patients communicate with doctors, but doctors communicate with other doctors.
Medical knowledge is being spread around the world more easily than ever. Somewhere between 5 and 10 times on an average day, Doctors Without Borders relays questions to 280 experts around the world when professionals from Niger and South Sudan face complex issues. Technology has opened up the door to pooling medical advice from an unbelievable number of geniuses around the world, which would have been impossible in the medical world one hundred or even fifty years ago.
We have more effective means of diagnosing issues
Whereas the pressure used to be placed on doctors to diagnose issues relying on their own perceptions, now technology can remove the element of doubt altogether. A medical professional obviously has the knowledge of ailments necessary to make an experienced and expert assessment of a patient, but technology adds that added sense of objectivity and advanced assessment which serves as an aide to doctors and other medical staff working in a hospital.
New non-invasive devices, such as advancements in nano-tech, have reduced the risk of infection through the old invasive procedures of diagnosing patients, and they’re also more cost effective. Again, it makes the job less risky for doctors and surgeons and improves the overall procedure for patients. Technology has made healthcare safer, smarter and cheaper than ever.
Patient lifting technology
A statistic which might demonstrate the importance of technology is that 2400 members of nursing staff, per year, are injured by lifting patients. There’s no denying, then, that technology designed to lift patients out of their beds has completely revolutionized the operation of hospitals and served to protect the staff who work there as well as the patients. A clean bill of health is something everything deserves, and technology is making that possible. Who knows what advancements will appear next?
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