IT innovations also help doctors improve patient relationships and healthcare communication
Telemedicine in recent years has been improving both the care offered and the experience of the patient who decides to move thanks to the opportunities offered by healthcare tourism. IT helps provide safe medical care and a pleasant trip to state-of-the-art overseas facilities.
For over 20 years IT innovations (innovation technologies) have improved patient care worldwide but today these same IT technologies are also helping doctors and healthcare facilities to improve their own Healthcare Marketing Strategy and communication direct with patients .
How will telemedicine help health tourism?
Telemedicine and telecommunications, mobile devices, information technologies provide remote clinical healthcare. There are three important software devices and features that help ensure the promise of healthcare tourism and medical travel:
First, there are the electronic media records . With an EMR (Electronic Medical Record / Healthcare Record) system, it is easy to collect clinical notes, diagnostic scans, records of medical administrators and discharge summaries in digital format. By automating and optimizing the clinical workflow, IT reduces the time and effort required to maintain information and create the data track needed for medical audits and quality control procedures;
Then there are smartphones , our handheld computers are becoming an important element for the cloud-based healthcare infrastructure. An EMR system deployed in the cloud can make every smartphone a virtual health portfolio. Patients can access their medical records from a smartphone and share information with healthcare professionals and medical facilities when traveling abroad;
Finally, data mining and analysis: Data mining and analysis technologies combine prepare and search huge archives of data collected from different sources. In combination with the analysis software, a cloud-based EMR system offers easy access to the knowledge and information that doctors and healthcare facilities abroad can use to identify the medical record of a particular patient. Conversely, patients can communicate with them and receive a specific diagnosis or therapy without leaving home.
What does IT offer patients and healthcare facilities?
Cloud computing and modern telemedicine devices facilitate the transfer, analysis and sharing of huge amounts of medical data, quickly and securely. Let’s see what the main aspects are:
IT helps patients receive the best available care. Cloud computing centers become part of an ecosystem, which includes globally accredited hospitals and clinics. Healthcare providers all over the world get easy access to medical information before patients arrive. At the same time, patients can use their smartphones to download information when they arrive at affiliated facilities;
Telemedicine offers patients a smoother and more enjoyable medical journey. Internet data searches and relying on agencies specializing in Marketing and Health Tourism reduce the time, effort and worry of finding, traveling and involving medical facilities abroad;
IT makes medical information and complete medical records accessible . All patient data is stored in a single authoritative source in a cloud computing center. Centralized data management makes it easier for qualified healthcare professionals to identify information gaps and synchronize patient data.
Think digital: the Israel case study
Israel is the most advanced country in the use of digital tools in the health sector . The citizen who needs his general practitioner can book the appointment via the web, all reports are transmitted electronically, and everything is archived, from the surgery to the hospital, up to the administrative events, in a real health big data. Crossing these data with the patient’s personal, historical and family information allows the doctor to anticipate the diagnosis and treatment, to go from “taking care” to “taking care”.
The Israeli model provides for the so-called second pillar, an integrative health care for all citizens, which offers additional services compared to the basic ones at controlled costs and the model is so efficient that it is opening up the Israeli health care market to Health Tourism, from many countries. They go to Israel to seek treatment. Telemedicine is also used in the initial assessment phase and after the patient is discharged, the patient is moved only for treatment in Israel for the invasive part.