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Posted on Aug, 9 2014
Wearable technology has put its impact even in the medical and health care domain. We have, for long, know the use of computers and computing technology in healthcare. Medical transcription, computed tomography, cyber-knife, are some of the examples of use of computers in medical practices. Now, Manipal Hospitals have included wearable technologies in order to improve patient care.
So, what exactly is wearable technology and how are they being used for medical practices? Let us first have a look at it. Wearable technology refers to the devices or computers in their smaller forms, which you can wear either as spectacles, watches, health monitors, or even apparel. The first most popular wearable device was introduced by Google. You all must have heard about ‘Google Glass’.
Primarily wearable technology came in fashion as a consumer product. People have been using fitness tracking devices that can determine distance covered, monitor calories burnt, and analyze sleep patterns. Patients suffering from chronic diseases, heart diseases, and even pregnant mothers are getting the benefit of being attended to in a routinely manner with such wearable devices. This has encouraged enterprises in healthcare sector, such as Manipal Hospitals to trap the opportunities to generate revenues and improve patients care both inside and outside the hospitals.
Manipal Hospitals has revealed that use of wearable technology has resulted in providing better information to the doctors about cardiac arrests of the patients. Cardiologists are directly monitoring the heart patients and assisting them with suitable advices and treatment procedures. These devices can also monitor the patients from home and they are not required to visit the OPD frequently.
Talking on the inculcation of wearable technology in to patients’ care, Mr. Nandkishor Dhomne, CIO, of Manipal Health Enterprises says that this attempt has transformed their approach from ‘Lab-Centric’ to ‘User-Centric’ diagnostics. The integration was not a cake-walk for the hospital. IT and availability were not at all a constraint, but getting the medical and paramedical staff trained and making them used to it.
The hospital has many plans for the time to come. It is planning to integrate the information gathered from wearable sensors with advanced data analytics. This will be possible through the advancements in Cloud Computing technology and will bring remarkable breakthroughs in the way healthcare is delivered to the common man and the medical practitioners in the future.
It has been just close to seven months, Manipal Hospitals have embraced the wearable technology as a futuristic measure to improve their patient care. The coming time will bring more news about the acceptability and success of this technology among the patients and the doctors.