Category: Technology

How Technology is Helping the Medical Industry

2023 Update – Bionic Arm a Success!

Attaching bionic limbs is not anything new, but now, for the first time in history, a bionic hand has been attached to a woman from Sweden that integrates with the nervous system so that not only can she perform tasks that weren’t feasible before, but she also can feel sensations in her hand.

And now, with the advancements of AI, the hopes for even greater medical achievements will be coming in the near future!

The Emergence of Healthcare Technology

From food to education and from business to medicine, everything is being affected by the rapid growth in technology and it is accelerating at a rate never seen before. With all these advancements, nursing, and healthcare are at the top of the list.

All this technology has not only allowed doctors and nurses to perform their duties more effectively, but it has also made procedures more efficient and less painful for patients. Treatment is better, recovery is faster, and life-saving situations have increased significantly.

Medical Technology
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Let’s discover the medical technologies that are helping nurses and medical practitioners perform their jobs:

Communications:

Paper medical charts are now a thing of the past. A patient’s medical files must follow HIPAA confidentiality laws to avoid information from being compromised. Electronic Health Records (EHR) allow this medical information to be kept digitally and shared protectively with doctors and patients in a highly secure manner. Not only are patient files more protected, but information can be electronically transmitted to other medical professionals in an instant, as well as prescriptions are promptly transferred to pharmacists. All is done via the Internet in an encrypted and secure fashion.

Wearable Tech:

A recent innovation. Wearable tech is allowing people to keep track of their fitness and health and healthcare facilities can conduct their monitoring and treatment more accurately. These devices differ in their functions ranging from heart monitors, health monitors, fitness trackers, GPS trackers, and emergency response callers.

A digital healthcare solutions company in Australia is in the process of developing a smartphone app that can diagnose respiratory conditions with the phone’s microphone, acting as a stethoscope. The ResAppDx app applies artificial intelligence algorithms to the sounds, which identify potential respiratory conditions, including pneumonia, asthma, bronchiolitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Telehealth:

Telehealth/telemedicine refers to the delivery of clinical services by trained medical personnel to patients remotely. Residents of most rural areas who have been struggling with physically reaching medical facilities can benefit greatly from this technology. Many who have lost many lives due to lack of immediate medical attention can now have access to doctors, at least virtually, until physical health care services can arrive.

But it is not just remote areas that can benefit. Handled properly, many people in suburbia and cities can be helped via this technology and it is being used more and more. It may not seem much, but talking to a doctor virtually can help handle many medical situations, at least for the time being or until help arrives.

A recent survey by the Medical Society of the State of New York was conducted regarding telemedicine and the results are impressive.

There is much advocacy for telehealth as well. New York recently joined 28 states plus the District of Columbia in adopting a telemedicine/telehealth reimbursement parity law (the “Telehealth Law”). The new Telehealth Law became effective on January 1, 2016, and made several
significant changes to the New York Public Health Law and
the New York Insurance Law.

Doctor’s Networking:

What do doctors do when they are faced with a medical dilemma and might need a second, third, or even fourth opinion? They ask for advice from other experts. However, while they take their time to contact the other doctor, a patient might be fighting for his or her life. Fortunately, with advancements in technology, doctor’s networking has become strong and quick. Getting answers in minutes or even getting visual assistance by a video call has become a possibility.

Proper Medications:

Errors in medicine intake are not something new or unheard of. Whether it is a mistake on the part of the patient or a distracted medical employee, it happens, and it happens frequently. Thanks to technology such as automatic medication reminders, mistakes like these can now be avoided. These devices help the patients and healthcare staff to ensure timely intake of prescriptions and the right ones with a limited percentage of error.

Robotics and Miniaturization:

The accomplishments of this technology are impressive and its functionality is providing major transformations in the medical field, such as the Colon Pill. In addition to medical miniaturization, robotics is allowing patients to forego painful and sometimes wrongful diagnoses and procedures. Diagnosis acquired from this type of automation can be precise and very accurate.

See our infographic on The Impact of Technology on Health Care

Medical breakthroughs That are Changing the World

Diseases, especially those that affect one’s physical abilities to get around and prevent us from living our lives in a normal fashion can have a dramatic effect on their entire well-being. In fact, some illnesses hamper the ability of people to manage just the basic things in life, such as eating by themselves and walking without assistance of any kind. Fortunately, there have been some major medical breakthroughs in recent times. By allowing them to live their life to the fullest, these medical breakthroughs are changing the game for many. What are these medical breakthroughs?

Pill Cam Colon

Imagine a pill that you can swallow with a camera that can view the entire colon, without sedation or radiation. This is not science fiction. This is a scientific fact. The Israeli company Given Imaging has developed such a device that has been successfully tested and is currently being used for potential colon cancer patients.

BrainGate’s Brain Sensor

In mid-2015, BrainGate, a technology company, implanted a brain sensor into the brain of a woman who had been paralyzed for the past fifteen years. After the brain sensor was implanted, the woman was able to drink coffee without any assistance. So how does this brain technology work? BrainGate’s cognitive apparatus records electrical signals after mining the neurons of brain activity. Once this is done, the sensor translates the signals into movement commands.

Diagnosis of Cancer via Dogs

This may sound a little absurd, but research has proven dogs can naturally diagnose cancer. Recently, four dogs including two German shepherds, an Australian shepherd, and a Labrador retriever were tested by a group of German scientists. In order to identify the presence of lung cancer in the surveyed individuals, each dog was made to sniff the breath of over two hundred patients.

The success to failure ratio was 71:29. Furthermore, the dogs were asked to identify the presence of breast cancer, colon cancer and bladder cancer in the surveyed individuals. Once again, the dogs had an over 70% success ratio. Therefore, there was enough evidence for the German scientists to conclude that dogs can naturally diagnose cancer.

Cardiac Output Monitor

Another invention from Israel that is used for the prevention of sepsis, a blood infection that is responsible for one in four hospital deaths and is listed as one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States.

Cheetah Medical uses sensors to monitor the movement of blood from the heart to the body’s organs which enables medical professionals to more efficiently diagnose and treat patients.

Technology for Migraine Pain

Today, technology is putting forth new ways of relieving headaches including severe headaches such as migraines. For many people, drugs do not do the job. Therefore, there is a growing need for alternative ways.

Fortunately, the FDA has taken the demands of migraine patients into consideration and has approved two migraine gadgets: Cefaly and SpringTMS. Cefaly is worn across the forehead for about twenty minutes each day while SpringTMS is a gadget held at the back of the head where the pain exists. Both these gadgets significantly relieve migraine pain.

There you have it—the three major medical breakthroughs that are changing the lives of many people. However, there are many other medical breakthroughs that are helping people to overcome their diseases.