Telemedicine: Doc in Your Pocket

[Just] imagine—you could literally be at home, sitting on your couch, fully clothed in pyjamas—okay, clean kind of in a way,—where you wouldn’t have to drive to the appointment through that traffic or in that mass of sick folks hacking and coughing away in the waiting room. Kind of futuristic—it’s magic to me.

Convenience: Gone are those days when hours are lost in queues for consultations, and the day is then shot off with the missed appointments; telemedicine gives one the option of a doctor from the home.
It provides access to people who have mobility impairments or are based in remote parts of the country.

• Long Term Disease Management: It will help schedule a visit with the concerned doctor for long-term diseases, e.g., diabetes and heart diseases.
• Mental Health Support: This will provide reach for more access to mental health medical care workers to extend their access for the increased demand for such services.

Cons of Telemedicine

It sometimes fails when a patient needs it most, such as technological breakdowns at that point.
For some: some may either not be able to afford good internet connectivity or may not have the technical knowledge of interacting through video.

Physical Exams: some of the ascertained requirements of the tests inherently automatically require the physical presence in order to carry out the tested exam.

• Physician-Patient Relationship: Rapport with a physician can often be hard to create for a patient, specifically if that physician is not presented physically to the patient in front of him.

Wearables: Your Wristband Knows You Better Than You Do?

Not these, but it’s actually the aesthetic wonders of tech that clip around your wrist in the most appealing way. I’m talking about high-tech gadgets, smartwatches, fitness trackers, etc., which are available these days, which one can use to check almost everything from the heartbeat to sleeping patterns. It is way too complex, with so much data about the person’s health.

Benefits of Wearables

• Self-awareness— It helps the individual to gain insight on global health and fitness parameters so lifestyle decisions can be based on it.
• Motivation and Goal Setting — Track of your fitness goals and keep on the right track for success.
  Alternative products — A few other wearable devices can help diagnose problems related to health early, such as an irregular heart rhythm, or even sometimes, sleep apnea that could save the patient from enormous health issues in the long run. Disadvantages:

Privacy Issues: As already stated, enormous data is getting registered every minute from such wearables, so privacy and security raise some important concerns. Does this data become available to someone, and in what way do they use it?
??? Concerns on Accuracy:?? Add to this the fact that some wearables will have features which will show that the data that they are able to collect, in due time, is less accurate or already wrong. Do not entirely rely on the kind of diagnosis that your smartwatch is telling you.

• Overload of Information: An overload happens when there is too much of constant counting and recording. Do not let yourself get obsessed over the numbers.

Personalized Medicine: Healthcare Just for You

Just picture a medication taken into a patient as not one-fits-all. Personalized medicine is your specific genetic makeup, your health, and yours in selecting the treatment alternatives related to lifestyle. It sounds so very futuristic today but the “now” is slowly coming.

Benefits of Personalized Medicine:

All those treatments are easily and effectively tailored.
This can help in finding safer medications because of the blueprint one has contained in the genes.
Preventative medical treatment can use as classified those that can be at risk while carrying some diseases.

• Cost: Personalized medicines can be a very expensive process. Questions have been raised about accessibility and fairness.
• Genetic Privacy: It is quite understood that, with the escalation of knowledge on genetics, an expanded realization of concern towards genetic privacy pops up. What other ways out there is your genetic information being used, and by whom?
• Available in Limited Scope: The science of personalized medicine is, after all in its infancy still. Not all treatments may be possible on a personalized footing at this point in time.
  All you need to do is embrace this exciting (sometimes confusing) world of health care technology:
• Discuss with your Doctor: Perhaps you would like to hear from your doctor about the currently available products in this era of telemedicine, wearables, personalized kits, etc. that can be brought into application to work for you in fulfilling your needs.
  Check out a few products, and at last, select one of the best from a legitimate brand that always takes care of the data and privacy.
  Data Privacy: These constitutions tend to force a deeper look from the end user. Let’s be very honest now; almost every wearable has an app. Thus when selecting an app, there is a requirement in the user being data protection and privacy minded.
• Don’t Self-Diagnose: Custom wearable high tech, in particular when twinned with applications relating to health, it can bring to the fore huge amounts of information. But in no way, it could replace or become a substitute for the experience of a doctor. You feel something wrong with your health? Feel free to visit a doctor.
• Live in the Totality of Your Wellness: Do not focus so much on the numbers. While wearables can be of help, minor your life around good healthy habits—eating well, exercising regularly, and sleeping well.

Adopt a Proactive Approach to Your Health

Be empowered—hold the future of health in your own hands! Use them as knowledge, arm thyself with information, remain on the map, and much more. It will help you track your health indicators, set your goals, and even make evidence-based decisions on the type of life you want to live. And of course, you always have in abundance the one instrument—the body itself. So just listen to its whisper—and shouts!—and in any case be able to feed a healthy lifestyle, no questions asked, about its professional guidance when and where needed.

That is, perhaps opening up the challenging field of health care to you so that you can really effect some change, thus throwing open a gate to active entryways into maximal possibilities for both traditional as well as technological advances.