Trends in Virtual Healthcare
It is no secret that COVID-19 has created a shift in the world of healthcare. Hospitals all over the world were forced to make a hasty shift from seeing patients in person to seeing patients virtually. During this time a lot of lessons were learned and virtual healthcare will likely be sticking around for the near future.
The Contactless Experience
COVID-19 has forced many industries to switch to a contactless experience. Luckily, this was easy to adapt to the world of healthcare because of the availability of technology. Instead of having patients come into the office to fill out forms when they arrive, these forms can now be pushed to a cellphone or computer and the patient can fill them out at home before the visit. This reduces the number of objects and people that the patient comes into contact within the office.
In addition to changes in paperwork procedures, virtual visits were also a part of the contactless trend that COVID-19 introduced. It turns out, patients were loving the virtual healthcare experience. A recent survey indicated that 90% of patients were happy with the quality of care that they received virtually. For this reason, it is anticipated that a lot of routine healthcare appointments will go virtual in the future. This also makes healthcare more accessible to people living in remote or rural areas.
Contact Tracing
Contact tracing has been used in other countries to track the spread of COVID-19. This tracing works by using data from your cellphone to tell you who you have been in contact with that has COVID-19 and when to quarantine. This method is nowhere near perfect and has seen many setbacks when attempting to trace COVID-19 effectively. However, with a new partnership between Google and Apple, there is hope for the future.
Remote Monitoring
For patients with chronic conditions, the introduction of remote monitoring significantly reduces the number of times that the individual has to go to the hospital. Since this technology is available, it makes life easier for the person with chronic illnesses. We will likely see a shift to more remote monitoring to keep patients comfortable at home even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
Originally published at https://thomaslooby.net.