Chester County Medicine Fall 2019 - 14

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Technological Advancements:
Transforming the
Healthcare Industry
BY JAMES E PLUMMER, DMGT, MBA, MSM

T

he increasing awareness by a vast majority
of the population worldwide regarding
health measures and the overall well-being
has enabled people to acquire valuable knowledge
on appropriate methods of preventing diseases. The
first component that has facilitated this expansion
is the wearable tracking devices and sensors that
allow the monitoring of various aspects of health
and fitness (Sharma et al., 2015). Sensors are
primarily used to examine different elements like
temperature, chemical and biological levels of
patients, and pressure. The apparatus is attached to the clothing or
the environment of the user to provide daily health information
in a continuous and uninterrupted mechanism such as the blood
glucose biosensor. The wearable technology presents a platform
for physicians to undertake periodic tracking of ambulatory
patients by measuring and storing suitable respiratory and
cardiac parameters. In addition, the gadgets are utilized to derive
information relating to blood oxygen saturation, leg movements,
and general fitness for tracking progress towards our ultimate
health goals. An example of a commercially available wearable
device is the Fitbit (Krummel, 2019). Hence, the tools have
offered massive benefits to individuals to acquire better control of
their health outcomes as well as the sharing of data with healthcare
providers for convenience during treatment.
The second element is patient-centered care (PCC) that
revolves around the concept of providing healthcare decisions and
quality measurements according to the specific health needs and

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desired outcomes of the patient. The approach is based
on the underlying principle of a strong partnership
between the patient and the healthcare professionals,
particularly the former's preferences and values to
cultivate flexibility and warrant patient satisfaction
(Merav & Ohad, 2017). The framework emphasizes
shared decision-making and active collaboration among
the involved parties to design a customized care plan.
However, PCC faces the principal challenge of
routinely engaging patients in all decisions regarding
any action. A stable communication channel is
therefore required to educate patients on the options and
consequences of their choices (Barry & Edgman-Levitan, 2012).
This difficulty implies that the patients may need weighty
emotional support from the physicians to create an atmosphere
devoid of misunderstanding and to uphold trust for full disclosure.
Thus, PCC focuses on the patient through mutual interaction
with the healthcare provider, although the system's success is highly
dependent on the existing relationship of the players.
The third aspect is increased data demand in healthcare,
which is used to prevent epidemics, improve the quality of life,
cure diseases, and prevent avoidable deaths. Medical practitioners
heavily rely on the available statistics at the individual, regional,
and macro-levels to tailor their service delivery due to the
expanding population (Sharma et al., 2015). This data is
obtained during a routine patient visit to a hospital which is
stored in databases for future references in recurring ailments.
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Chester County Medicine Fall 2019

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