The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion

The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion

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Dishina Singer
RE: Discussion – Week 6 Dishina
COLLAPSE
Digital Medicine: Mobile Devices, Wearable, Telehealth, Telemedicine – The Impact of COVID-19 on Technology Advances

Digital medicine is a type of medical care that applies modern technologies and medical tools for the intervention and measurement of healthcare variables (Sipes, 2020). It is engineered by modern software and hardware technologies that aim to attain high-quality care. There is a variety of new technologies in use today such as mobile devices, wearable technologies, and telehealth and telemedicine devices. They are applied in the provision of preventive care, drug recovery, health promotion and formulating of treatment plans (Islam et al., 2020). Through digital medicine healthcare sectors have reaped immeasurable benefits. They have been able to use the tools in conducting clinical research and identifying core determinants of health impacting different groups of healthcare patients. There are many wearable technologies in use today. They include wristwatches, glucose monitors, blood pressure tracks and wearable mobile devices. In this discussion, I will explain whether COVID-19 has impacted the use or non-use of digital medicine and explain how wearable technologies, devices, and telehealth contribute to Big data. Besides, I will explain the challenges that I might have faced during the implementation of digital medicine in my healthcare organization. Finally, I will recommend at least two strategies for overcoming the discussed challenges now and in future. The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion

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Impacts of COVID-19 on the Use or Non-use of Digital Medicine

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a lot happening within a short period. The healthcare organizations were crippled with no capacity to admit the infected patients. Millions of people lost their lives due to the unpreparedness of the facilities. There was an acute shortage of accommodation facilities and healthcare providers had to integrate virtual technology to serve their clients. (Smital et al., 2020). According to my experience during COVID-19, many healthcare providers switched to digital telemedicine to reach their patients as no social gatherings, contact or physical meetings were allowed. Digital medicine has risen to a higher notch level. The digital medicine in use today was accelerated. If it were not for COVID-19 healthcare facilities would still be lagging in terms of technology. Healthcare organization had no time to restructure their healthcare delivery systems, they popped into it unprepared. An increasing range of digital medicine tools such as mobile phones, wearable technologies and artificial intelligence have been adopted to track, monitor and predict COVID-19 mutations and help patients connect via wireless networks with their clients. Before the outbreak of the novel virus, only a few magnetically certified care facilities were using digital telemedicine causing inequities in healthcare. It is a fact that COVID-19 breathed new dawn into the digital medicine world. Many healthcare organizations are today depend on digital health to deliver their medical care services (Tully et al., 2020). Digital technologies have now become embedded in healthcare facilities and with the way things are mobbing no turning back. The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion

How Wearable, Devices, and Telehealth Contribute to Big Data

Big data explain large, fast-growing, heterogeneous big data sets that are valuable in healthcare. Big data needs modern technology tools such as wearable technologies like Apple Watch and telehealth devices to mine, analyze, interpret and predict healthcare issues. The present technologies are transforming healthcare systems in the right direction. Telemedicine would not have been possible without wearable technologies, devices and telehealth. Big Data Analytics is one of the telemedicine technologies that have helped clinical researchers in data mining, analysis, interpretation and prediction. Smart care facilities, smart mobile hospitals and tracking of medical data have been made possible by the convergence of wearable technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) (Tully et al., 2020). The Big data generated by wearable, devices and telehealth devices has opened a new healthcare paradigm called nursing informatics. One of the contributions of telehealth and new technologies is improved patient diagnosis. When diagnosing a client one has to analyze humongous big medical data. In the contemporary world, healthcare providers can use wearable technologies to extract the needed patient information to diagnose and assess the medical condition of the patient. Telemedicine has led to better post-treatment and pre-treatment monitoring of the client. Patients from remote areas no longer need to extrapolate the medical cost through additional fees on transport, one needs to have a smartphones device and can be diagnosed, assessed and evaluated while at home. It is a win-win situation for all healthcare stakeholders because follow-up clinics can be conducted virtually and medical expenditure is minimized. The convergence of wearable technology and the internet of things has led to innovations such as cloud computing. Electronic medical records can now be stored on clouds for future backups and enhance data protection from unauthorized parties (Yang et al., 2020)The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion. Predictive analytics has also contributed immensely to big data analytics. Physicians can predict risk factors or possible conditions that can affect patients with chronic illnesses and combat them before they worsen the patient medical condition.

Challenges Faced in Implementation of Digital Medicine in Nursing Practice

The process of implementing digital telemedicine in our healthcare organization has not been as we thought. One of the challenges is resistance from the staff. The staff has not bought the idea well as they are concerned about their skills and knowledge in information technology which are a must for them to engage in telehealth. They have argued that going back to school will be expensive and they need compensation for that. Another concern is reimbursement (Kruse et al., 2019). It has not been easy advocating for more funds to be allocated to support telemedicine services. The telemedicine reimbursement provided by Medicare and Medicaid services is not adequate which has limited telehealth care delivery. Another challenge is poor integration. Our electronic medical records do not align with the new technologies being employed complicating the workflow records (Kruse et al., 2019). We have been unable to gather adequate medical data for medical care continuity. Many of the clients to which we have been providing care have not been consistent. This implies that they seek care once in our facility and the next visit they go to another healthcare facility. Besides, some patients are not aware of the telemedicine services offered in our care facility. This has led to missed opportunities that could have generated revenue for the organization. Data privacy and confidentiality are other issues of concern (Kruse et al., 2019)The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion. There have been security issues when accessing the patient data from the electronic health records which question its confidentiality.

Strategies for Overcoming the Challenges

There are various ways in which the discussed challenges can be addressed. The first is resistance to telehealth technology by the nursing staff. To overcome resistance one has to bond well with the nursing staff and prepare them in advance by disseminating and sharing information with them about why digital medicine is being adopted and how it will enhance workflow. The concern on reimbursement can be solved by correct documentation of the telemedicine services administered to the client and updating the medical insurers on the same. The team of the digital medicine implementation should evaluate the healthcare system and compare it with the technology that matches its features and components before implementation (Kruse et al., 2019). The lack of care continuity due to seeking services from different healthcare organizations can be solved by collaborating with all healthcare organizations and sharing patient information on the same platform (American Nurses Association, 2015)The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion. Public marketing is required to create awareness of the telehealth services offered and attract more clients to seek medical care.

References

American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice (2nd ed.).

Islam, M., Mahmud, S., Muhammad, L. J., Islam, M. R., Nooruddin, S., & Ayon, S. I. (2020). Wearable technology to assist the patients infected with novel coronavirus (COVID-19). SN Computer Science, 320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-020-00335-4

Kruse, C., Betancourt, J., Ortiz, S., Valdes Luna, S. M., Bamrah, I. K., & Segovia, N. (2019). Barriers to the use of mobile health in improving health outcomes in developing countries: Systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(10), Article e13263. doi:10.2196/13263

Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing.

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Smital, L., Haider, C. R., Vitek, M., Leinveber, P., Jurak, P., Nemcova, A., Smisek, R., Marsanova, L., Provaznik, I., Felton, C. L., Gilbert, B. K., & Holmes, D. R., III (2020). Real-time quality assessment of long-term ECG signals recorded by wearables in free-living conditions. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 67(10), 2721–2734. doi:10.1109/TBME.2020.2969719

Tully, J., Dameff, C., & Longhurst, C. A. (2020). Wave of wearables: Clinical management of patients and the future of connected medicine. Clinics in Laboratory Medicine, 40(1), 69–82. doi:10.1016/j.cll.2019.11.004

Yang, X., Wang, X., Li, X., Gu, D., Liang, C., Li, K., Zhang, G., & Zhong, J. (2020). Exploring emerging IoT technologies in smart health research: A knowledge graph analysis. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 20, 260. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-020-01278-9 The Impact Of COVID-19 On Technology Advances Discussion