Today ends another week of plentiful tech news in the healthcare industry. Here are a few highlights.
Now, if only healthcare, itself, could be delivered over the Internet.
That’s how a ZocDoc survey found how Generation Y feels about going to the doctor. Conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of ZocDoc, the survey found “there is a distinct disconnect between the expectations of the digitally connected Generation Y and the realities of healthcare's current infrastructure.” Understandably, more than half the 2,000-plus adults between the ages of 18 and 34 polled said they found the whole process of obtaining healthcare “frustrating.”
Everything seems to be changing in the healthcare world. Physicians are now using electronic health records (EHR) to keep track of patients, tablets and smartphones to stay in touch with their offices (and patients) wherever they go. And now a new study looks at how information management is changing, and the new strategic opportunities it may offer today – as well as problems that still need to be solved.
To answer this question, Precyse, a provider of health information management (HIM) technology and services, has just released "Health Information Management in 2016: The HIM Industry's Transformative Journey to Enterprise Information Management - What Does the HIM Department of the Future Look Like?"
Quantum International thinks the market for robots who perform surgery is so huge, it’s preparing a list of possible targets for joint venture or acquisition that stand poised to capitalize on this new era of medical robotics. Robots are doing everything these days, from prostatectomies to hysterectomies, and patients love it as they result in faster recovery times (often done in one-day surgery), less invasive incisions and scarring and fewer complications.
And the greater speed at which these remote-controlled robots can work allows doctors to perform many more surgeries than they could before – up to twice as many – especially important as they to recoup the cost of the systems in the first place! For these reasons, demand for cutting-edge surgical robotic technology is increasing rapidly around the world. The market for better, faster and more affordable machines could skyrocket in the next few years as the technology improves, and QUAN is betting on it.
Spectocor today announced its PocketECG, which pulls together traditional Holter, event and mobile telemetry monitoring, analyzing and then streaming cardiac rhythm data continuously to a monitoring center. The monitoring device is compact and mobile, using cellular networks for immediate transmissions. Arrhythmias can result from coronary artery disease, changes in heart muscle, heart attacks, healing after surgery and irregular heartbeats. Since some arrhythmias can be very serious – and there are about 300,000 deaths from them a year – it’s vital to get medical help right away.
Some athletes with no prior heart problems have died this way, in what doctors consider “sudden death.” Monitors that continuously track heartbeat can alert clinicians to any sudden change in rhythm and get help right away.
With a booming aging population, the exploding costs of healthcare and the inability of many clinical practices and hospitals yet to adopt electronic medical records (EMR), there’s still a way it can all come together. According to Bruce Brandes, it’s mobility. Interviewed by Chris Silva, Brandes, the executive vice president and chief strategy officer at AirStrip Technologies, said that with 30 million more patients entering the healthcare system who have more complex clinical conditions, just as the number of providers is declining, a new way to collaborate is an absolute must if we’re to meet the medical needs of our aging population.
“Communication errors, currently the No. 1 cause of avoidable patient harm in a hospital, will become more significantly profound if we do not find a new way to collaborate,” he told Silva.
