How digital health innovations promote better living

For many of us, digital healthcare has been integrated into everyday lives. Whether it’s in the form of an online consultation with doctor, a prescription sent electronically to pharmacy, or a smartwatch to track heart rate, steps, and sleep.

These digital health innovations are only the tip of the iceberg for what is possible. Growth in this area is occurring at an unprecedented rate and is accelerated by the demands of an increasing population, availability of new treatments, and a rise in diagnosis of chronic conditions.

The positive impact of innovation in healthcare is already evident with improvements in our management of chronic conditions, health literacy, and the way in which we interact with healthcare providers. Here are some of the ways that digital health innovation has transformed healthcare.

Staying on track of your health goals

Trying to quit smoking, stick to a diet, diabetes control or remember to take your medications or supplements? Fortunately, digital innovation has made living a healthy lifestyle easier than ever.

Choosing to make a change to your diet or lifestyle can often be the easiest part of the journey, with the struggle often experienced when trying to maintain the new regimen in the weeks and months to come.

That’s where health technology can help. Studies have shown that patients are twice as likely to take their medication or supplements as directed when using reminders on an app (https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/apps-to-help-patients-take-medication-on-time-need-to-be-evaluated-in-a-consistent-way/,) and automated text messages increase the success rate of smoking cessation when used alongside support from doctor or pharmacist.
(https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/text-messaging-support-helps-smokers-quit-but-apps-not-yet-shown-to-work/).

Shared care records

Shared care records are a digital innovation that may not be immediately obvious to the general public, but it has a huge impact on the efficiency of the healthcare service. Shared care records are a combination of all of your separate medical notes from every organisation involved in your care.

Whenever healthcare professional shave easy electronic access to a patient’s medical notes at the point of care, it improves the safety and accuracy of diagnosis and prescribing.

In many cases, patients are now able to view their own medical records which can help them understand their condition more clearly, make informed choices, and ultimately give them more control over their own healthcare. This is particularly beneficial when managing long-term conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure COPD, and heart failure.

Remote consultations

The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated the move from in-person consultations to telemedicine. By now we are all familiar with having interactions with doctors, nurses, and pharmacists over the phone or video calls.

While there is no doubt that some appointments achieve better outcomes when conducted face-to-face, it is clear to see how remote consultations can improve access to healthcare by accommodating easily into everyday lives.

Rather than having to take an afternoon off work or sit in traffic in order to visit your GP for a short 10-minute appointment, you can step away from your desk briefly and have your appointment over the phone or video call, saving you valuable time when getting a quick response to a straight forward query.

Electronic prescribing

Most prescriptions are now sent directly from your GP surgery to your nominated pharmacy using a secure electronic system.

This digital healthcare innovation saves surgeries, pharmacies, and patients a significant amount of time as the patient or pharmacy staff member does not need to physically collect the prescription from the doctor themselves. The enhanced efficiency and reduced admin time provide clinicians with more time to devote to patientcare, and ultimately this results in better patient outcomes.

It’s clear that recent healthcare innovations such as wearable technology, virtual appointments, and electronic prescriptions have become an irreplaceable part of our everyday lives.

These innovations, when coupled with expert advice and guidance from healthcare professionals, can have a huge positive impact on patients’ care and quality of life.

There still remains a massive untapped potential for digital innovation in healthcare. In the future, we can only expect to see patient outcomes improve as technology becomes more deeply integrated into healthcare provision, allowing patients’ to have a greater knowledge and understanding of their health to make better health related decisions.

‍