Big data technology is shaping the future of healthcare. Global healthcare companies are projected to spend over $105 billion on big data by 2030.
One of the biggest benefits of big data in healthcare has been in the field of virtual healthcare. Demand for virtual healthcare services exploded during the pandemic. Big data technology is helping make this new field even more promising.
Big Data Technology is Driving Major Advances in Virtual Healthcare
Doctors and other healthcare professionals often treat patients in person in a location like a hospital, clinic, or medical office. However, thanks to developments in digital technology, medical practitioners may now digitally diagnose, treat, and manage the care of their patients.
Doctors have used different types of big data technology to make the most of the services that they offer to their clients. One of the biggest ways that they have helped improve patient care is by offering telemedicine.
Valarie Romero of the Arizona Telehealth Program shared a list of five ways that big data contributes to advances in telemedicine. Some of the ways that big data is driving advances in telemedicine include the following:
- They can evaluate data from IoT devices and use it to forecast healthcare trends and identify individual patient needs. IoT is incredibly important in healthcare and is even more helpful in telemedicine since doctors need more diagnostic tools to treat patients.
- Big data helps doctors make sure patient electronic records are complete. This makes it easier to make more informed diagnoses.
- They can use big data to improve patient outcomes by taking advantage of all extraneous data on major healthcare trends.
- Big data makes it easier for doctors to leverage the benefits of healthcare apps.
Now that you understand the benefits of using big data in virtual healthcare, you might want to visit some of the benefits of telemedicine.
Reasons More Healthcare Providers Take Advantage of Virtual Healthcare With Big Data
Virtual healthcare, or telehealth, witnessed unprecedented growth during the COVID-19 infections and has now gained laudable recognition in the healthcare sector, adopted by many. That is because while the pressures on the healthcare ecosystem have increased with the pandemic, telemedicine has aided with the social distancing measures put in place and continues to make it accessible, affordable, and possible to treat patients with mobility issues. Fortunately, big data has made virtual healthcare more feasible than ever, as stated above.
As this sector continues to expand, important technological use trends have evolved that will positively influence the future development of virtual healthcare services. Some of the benefits of using big data to improve telemedicine are listed below.
1. Improved Treatment of Chronic Conditions
Worldwide, chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, Alzheimer’s, and kidney disease affect 1 in 3 individuals. Most of the time, people may avoid and treat chronic diseases by altering their lifestyles and receiving preventative treatment. The majority of these patients, however, do not complete their treatment, do not take their repeat prescriptions or renew them, and do not show up for their scheduled follow-up sessions to assist them in managing their symptoms.
This disregard for a treatment plan increases the severity of illnesses and costs the healthcare sector billions of dollars annually. Telehealth can increase patient participation and adherence to a treatment plan while simultaneously lowering the care plan’s cost.
2. Increasing Acceptance of Virtual Healthcare
Virtual healthcare, or telemedicine, which was once widely embraced as a method to reduce the amount of community transmission during the peak of COVID-19, is now seen as a financially viable first line of therapy for follow-up and non-urgent consultations for many patients.
Today, many patients utilize telemedicine to have prescriptions renewed, get ready for a visit, examine test results, or get information. This expansion is apparent since telehealth usage has stabilized above pre-pandemic levels. We may anticipate seeing healthcare providers and insurance companies collaborate to increase telehealth’s accessibility and availability.
3. Increased Attention to Mental Health Wellbeing
When the pandemic hit, mental health services were interrupted. Individuals already getting treatment found their support groups disbanded, their clinic visits canceled, and their options for coping with their symptoms severely restricted.
Many therapists, counselors, and medical professionals have rapidly started using video conferencing to help their patients. Thus, teletherapy and telepsychiatry were developed. With the advent of virtual care settings like Ravkoo Health, which offer a wide range of services from online consultation to at-home labs to lifestyle support to prescription delivery, it is now possible to meet everyone’s essential needs.
4. Improved and New Data Sharing
It is nothing new that telehealth systems provide more user-friendly and practical data exchange, resulting in an upward growth curve. For example, several telehealth applications integrate with and connect with fitness apps to acquire data such as step count and heart rate directly from a person’s devices. When combined with electronic medical records, this offers medical providers a complete image of a person’s lifestyle and aids in painting a clearer picture of their present health.
Telehealth applications’ notion of integrated data sharing is motivated by interoperability, which is the capacity to access, share, integrate, and jointly utilize data in a coordinated manner inside and across multiple organizations. The future of telemedicine lies in this, and medical professionals must realize that to optimize patient advantages, they must move beyond merely presenting and documenting information.
5. Remote Patient Monitoring and Wearable Technology
Telehealth is becoming important for those with chronic diseases, which brings us to the next trend for the future: wearable technology. These gadgets have made it simple and effective for the healthcare sector to start remote patient monitoring. They let medical professionals observe their patients’ activity levels, heart rates, blood pressure, sleep patterns, and glucose levels in real time.
By integrating these devices with a secure telemedicine platform and electronic health records, members of care teams can take action at the first hint of a problem. So long as patients have faith in the security and privacy safeguards in place, wearable technology and the sharing of data produced by these devices with healthcare practitioners are certain to expand.
6. Convenient Pediatric Virtual Care
A sick child is never easy to monitor. Children are frequently good at hiding their symptoms, struggle to communicate, and frequently exhibit shyness or fear while speaking to medical professionals. When they require long-term monitoring, this becomes very challenging. However, childcare monitoring in Ravkoo Health can make it more comfortable for parents and lower the cost of high-quality care.
The use of pediatric telehealth will increase over the next several years thanks to the next generation of parents, who are more accustomed to utilizing virtual technology than prior generations.
7. Growing Technology Investments
Lastly, telehealth cannot exist without the necessary technological foundation. The acceptability of virtual healthcare services is made possible by the development and widespread usage of digital health technologies, such as COVID-19 tracing applications, wellness trackers, telemedicine, and virtual health apps, all of which can be used from the comfort of home. Further knowledge and technological investments will make telehealth projects and applications more successful.
The pandemic brought to light the labor crisis that has existed for some time and the lack of healthcare personnel. However, the workforce will experience even less stress due to investments in technology that supports the expansion of telehealth, and they may even be able to provide better care.
Big Data Leads to Massive Breakthroughs in Telemedicine
Big data has led to some tremendous changes in the healthcare sector. One of the most important has been the evolution of virtual healthcare services.
Some noticeable trends have become evident since the widespread adoption of telehealth services. The healthcare sector benefits greatly from telehealth, and we will use this ground-breaking technology well into the future.
Leading platforms like Ravkoo Health have demonstrated that telehealth services make healthcare more accessible to people and can improve public health, increase access to treatment, lessen the strain on the medical staff, and ease the financial strain.
More healthcare companies are going to find ways to leverage big data to improve telemedicine. There are a lot of benefits for clients as these providers use data analytics to make telemedicine more effective.