The Development of Smart Healthcare proportional to the rise in Smart Cities
Digital technologies are not only creating new health products, but smart is facilitating a change in how we manage our health. Smart is supporting a shift from a focus on cure towards a broader view of wellness management and healthy living.
Shifts such has these require a re-thinking of how our healthcare system is configured. New sets of collaborative relationships between technology companies, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, and healthcare professionals are emerging and will be required to further advance this agenda.
A key enabler of these relationships will be trust around how these players use and share our data. But health data is highly personal and sensitive. Panelists contended that we will need a new generation of smart health consumers to advance this agenda.
Addressing public health issues in cities like India through smart technology
When one thinks of the Internet of Things (IoT), usually digital homes and connected consumers come to mind. However, the scope of IoT is expanding rapidly and healthcare is an area of application that is emerging at a fast pace. Advances in information and communication technologies are making healthcare services smarter and improving lives every day.
Smart cities will take medical care to the next level enabling connectivity across devices and remote monitoring of patients. And that can be achieved in the following directions.
Advanced medical equipment for health services
The central government of India has prepared a blueprint for the development of 100 smart cities in the country. One of the key elements of the proposed smart cities includes state of the art health facilities for everyone. The potential applications of technology to improve efficiency, safety, and quality of health care in India are truly enormous.
Leveraging telemedicine to deliver better patient care
Health monitoring devices have made it possible for physicians to remotely collect patient data to foster diagnostics, preventive care, and measurement of treatment results. They offer residents the convenience of receiving alerts for medication and health checkups. Users can also set up notifications and workflows based on health status so that proactive action can be taken.
Contextualized healthcare in a smart city
Do you remember when smart was simply to do with setting goals for the team and less about a platform that ensured services were integrated? Maybe we need to bring this definition back and apply it to integrated care and eHealth. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound could all be the new hooks for the delivery of a digital platform that truly enables a reform of the health system and links it seamlessly to a smart city.
A key here though is to get the attitude to data openness right. It must be the choice of the citizen to share data, and not the requirement of the smart city. As cities and governments prove they can take care of personal data and the benefits to the citizen grow, then and only then, will people be more willing to share information and become part of the smartness it can deliver.
The direction and steps that healthcare takes to make itself a smarter entity must be in various forms, some of them mentioned below that leaves a lot to the reader to interpret:
· A measurable healthcare system in the hands of the citizen
· Relevant care driven by relevant data
· Smart infrastructure supporting virtual healthcare
· Patient becomes information provider
And interpretation or a look through another perspective in today’s world is the new way of attaining and implementing out-of-the-box knowledge.
Resources:
http://www.smartcitiesassociation.org/industries/healthcare.html
