In this day and age, when technology has breached into every aspect of our lives, it was only the matter of time when it will gain access to our healthcare. And if you are thinking about the good old doctor Google, we are way beyond that. Now we have an app for everything, and while some of them are promoting healthy lifestyle, others are there to help you with some chronic conditions or control your medication consumption. There are numerous benefits of using these apps, some of them being convenience for the patients and time-saving for the medical workers. Let us dive in deeper into this important topic and see how everyone can benefit from such progress.
Promoting Healthy Lifestyle
With today’s ruthless life pace, the fast food restaurants, air pollution and overall tendency towards sedentary behavior, it is crucial to find a different approach to promoting healthy lifestyle, and smartphone apps are doing just that. According to a research published in BMC Public Health, users of fitness apps experience improvement in self-confidence, increase in energy and the desire to motivate others to be physically active. There are some other aspects of the healthy lifestyle covered by apps, and those are better sleep (e.g. Sleep Talk Disorder), healthy and balance diet (e.g. My Diet Coach, Whole Foods Market, etc.), getting rid of the bad habits (quitting smoking and alcohol), improving cognitive abilities (memory games, logics challenges, etc.), sedentary behavior, etc.
Unburdening the Doctors
Although doctors are actual superheroes, they can only be at one place at a time, while apps are not restricted to one patient, one place or working hours. Of course, when it comes to some more serious medical condition, there is no replacement for the doctors, but when a patient just wants to seek some simple advice or schedule an appointment, doing that with the help of an app is much easier, for both patients and the medical staff. Doctors and staff will have more time to devote to each patient individually and the very visits will be more productive. The numerous useful features offered by these apps for online doctor consultation, scheduling the appointment, billing, insights in patient’s record and lab results, etc.
Managing Long Term Conditions
Patients suffering chronic health issues are in dire need for an assistant which would help them to manage their health better and answer the questions about the changing symptoms, developing diseases, other health threats, etc. For instance, there are many apps designed for patients with diabetes, which are useful for tracking their blood sugar levels, tagging your medications, recommending the diet and even sending reports to the physician. There are some apps designed to manage several long term conditions. One of them is “Manage My Health” app, computer-generated characters to demonstrate key points to help manage your condition, such as properly giving insulin shots for diabetics, and effective inhaler technique for patients suffering asthma.
The Rising Need for Healthcare Apps in Developing Nations
Although the use of healthcare apps has its benefits for everyone, it is especially recommended for senior citizens and pregnant women around the world and in developing countries, more than ever. Because healthcare is not yet as effective as it should be in these countries, because of the economic problems and poor travel infrastructure, there are many complications in these two groups that do not get the needed medical attention. First, those two populations need advice on how to deal with their changing conditions and guidelines on how to cope with health crisis. For pregnant women, some useful apps could be Safe Delivery, Zero Mothers Die, Mobile Delivery, etc.
A Trend that Keeps on Growing
In 2014, health and fitness apps were the fastest growing app category, and although the following year they were pushed aside by shopping apps, their popularity has not at all decreased. In the same year, there were more than 100 000 of healthcare apps and the number kept on growing. What we can expect from now on is doctors using apps to provide care, and searching for information to make or support their clinical decisions. Also, the patient-doctor relationship will become more direct, because the patients will have the chance to access doctor’s schedule and make an appointment with doctor directly to his mobile phone. The streamlining of the health records via mobile apps will additionally ease the communication and save time. It is also expected that 2016 will bring the rise of video consultations.
The perks brought to us by tech advancements have been numerous, but it seems, that so far, we could actually have the most to gain with the rise of the healthcare mobile apps.
Mia Guerra
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