Technology can empower our lives, from politics to shopping, and even where to go to school. There is one area that technology has yet to empower users, though. We have always wanted more control over our health. Whether it’s what and how we eat or information as to how to care for injuries and illness, the great hope of technology is that it can help bridge the gap between patient and medical knowledge. Now a simple app for the iPad can assist parents and children in making the decision in how best to treat appendicitis.
"The experience overall is really a sensory overload for most children," says Kyle Meadows, project lead and director of User Experience for ICC's Clutch Interactive. "There's going to be some interesting findings that come from figuring out what will engage people and allow them to obtain the information they need so they can make well informed decisions about their child's healthcare."
Technology has the ability to take complex decisions and assist us in understanding what is at stake. For the layman, medical decisions do not need to be complex cases of understanding the intricacies of the science involved. Sometimes just understanding that there are options and what they are can be comforting. Water finds the path of least resistance. So it would go with patients that feel like they are being trapped and forced towards certain decisions and outcomes simply because they do not know.
Something as simple as streamlining patient registration would go a long way to enabling patients to be more in control of their medical visits. Medical apps that allow patients to control their hospital room environment or even communicate with doctors and nurses. The possibilities are limitless.
"I think about a future where any child or parent that comes into an ER can be handed an electronic resource that puts all the information about what's about to happen to them and all the choices they are going to be faced with, right in their hands, is just so empowering,” says Meadows.
Edited by
Rich Steeves
