Digital Health In An Interconnected World
By Naresh Gandesiri, Senior Director – Digital Practice, VirtusaPolaris
The human body is God’s masterpiece. It is unquestionably the most complicated and intricate machine of all — working perfectly when maintained correctly. Really, it’s a machine consisting of several different and interconnected machines. However, if the human body’s health fails, it can overshadow everything in life. Hence, it is important to monitor it at every stage — from a minor ache to major health problem.
Technology is so pervasive today, as witnessed by smartphone penetration reaching more than 50 percent of the world’s population. There are many ways to monitor the human body and health using technology such as this. Digital health integrates the human body into the Internet of Things and monitors a human’s fitness, wellness, body behavior, and vitals. Technology has advanced to perform overall body diagnostics and provide personalized medicine and care to the patients using implants, wearables, smart phones, and smart sensors, leading to a better understanding of the voice of the human body.
In this interconnected world, an implanted device can function like an airplane’s blackbox and used to monitor overall human body health, making it easier to predict overall body behavior. There are many flagship medical device manufacturing companies currently producing medical devices that can be implanted into the body to monitor vital parts based on disease conditions. These implants have the capacity to send data from the devices to remote data centers which can be further analyzed to understand current behavior.
Looking ahead, physicians can use predictive analytics to better predict unknown future events by analyzing current data through data mining, statistics, modeling, machine learning, and AI in order to make future health predictions. This information can also help patients sign up for wellness and body fitness programs, while also helping healthcare providers be better equipped to provide personalized care to the patients. Additionally, insurance companies can use this data to provide more cost-saving options to consumers and lower claims. Given healthcare is a highly-regulated industry, securing patient privacy must be considered when designing the entire digital ecosystem.
Digital health helps deliver better access to quality and efficient care for all. This will be instrumental in helping to considerably reduce mortality rates thanks to increased awareness of health conditions and proactive health management plans.