Role of digital healthcare in critical and remote care

Digital Healthcare has been playing a catalyzing role in critical and remote care with increased adoption in the field of optimizing radiology, image triage, and clinician decision support. During the pandemic, Indians have recognized the role digital healthcare players play in providing remote care efficiently. The pandemic also paved the way for digital healthcare, predominantly perceived as telemedicine or telehealth, to evolve into more comprehensive virtual healthcare systems that provide the patient with clinicians, physicians, nurses, and a complete virtual care team that offers the right guidance.

For patients with critical problems such as cancer, the conventional approach to treatment and care overlooks several important issues. Digital healthcare supports primary caregivers to navigate the complexity of cancer regimens, and so on. Care coordination, patient navigation, and returning to normal life after recovery are some of the critical areas that demand attention and assistance for a patient, not only from their healthcare provider but also from their caregiver. Digital healthcare tools help them receive support in all these areas, from initial preparation to ongoing care and rehabilitation after recovery. Digital tools can create a customized communication plan for each patient that guides them through their needs and engages both them and their caregivers every day, instead of only checking in on symptoms during scheduled visits. These services also provide full transparency to patients by giving them on-demand access to their health plan, as well as helping them understand every step of their care journey.

Remote healthcare has proved to be an ideal solution for effectively containing and managing the after-effects of virus outbreaks like that of COVID-19. For example, nearly 80% of positive COVID-19 patients showed non-critical symptoms. This meant, that such patients could be remotely managed and given assistance virtually in their recovery journey. 

Specifically for the current pandemic, remote care helped in reducing the stress on hospital facilities and the risks faced by front-line doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals. Co-WIN app is yet another digital healthcare disruption we are witnessing. The application is set to effectively track, manage and maintain the world's largest vaccination drive.

On the other hand, digital healthcare service providers are making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to play an even larger role in critical care management. Conventional imaging and scans are still important but when it comes to confirming tumors, cancers, and other diseases which show tangible internal manifestations digital tools are poised to provide better results. And there has already been a radical shift in how medical imaging is performed in the 21st century, using some of these advanced digital healthcare tools.  Overall, digital healthcare tools can help healthcare workers, patients and their caregivers from anywhere to provide faster, improved, and accurate diagnosis and treatment. 

(The author of this article is the founder & CEO of DayToDay Health India)