Apps have made their way into every aspect of our lives. Changing the way we date, connect, shop, and do even the smallest and most insignificant tasks, it’s fair to say that technology is an essential and important part of 21s century living.
So it’s little wonder that medical apps have now made an appearance on the scene too. Ready and waiting to transform the patient/doctor relationship and our attitude to healthcare, they’re about to give us all an awful lot more control over our medical decisions.
Empowering ordinary people to increase their knowledge and have a real and informed say in their treatment plans, they’re going to turn the traditional playing field on its head, and put individuals like you in the driving seat.
How mobile technology will change healthcare
This is not a fantastical assumption to make. As sci-fi as it may seem, medical apps are changing the way we can expect to be treated, and we can already see this beginning to come into play.
One effect they are likely to have is to upend the traditional doctor-patient relationship and make it far more cooperative. Gone will be the days when you are solely reliant on your physician to make a diagnosis, and then refer you if they believe it’s something serious. Instead, you’re going to have access to tools like ‘symptom checkers’, which will empower you to carry out your own research and identify potential causes.
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to discuss your issue with a doctor while coming from a much more informed viewpoint. This will have numerous benefits for both parties, not least in saving both you and your physician valuable time on performing primary diagnostics, as well as the prolonged pain and suffering that can accompany drawn-out explorations into potential causation.
What’s more, they’re likely to make the treatment process itself far more effective, and thus efficient. Every one of us has left the doctor’s office in a bit of a daze on occasion, overwhelmed by the list of instructions we’ve been given regarding what to do when we get home.
Medical apps will remove this confusion completely. Serving as a central hub for these important details, they’ll not only record it for you, but also remind individuals to take their medication, allow them to monitor side effects, and guide you through your treatment plan, contributing to a fast and full recovery.
In some instances, they’ll even allow you to get doctors’ notes and prescriptions online, saving you the time and effort of popping into your practice for the sole purpose of gaining these.
The growing demand for medical apps
The exploration above has outlined just a few of the benefits that medical apps can offer, so it is little surprise that they are becoming increasingly sought after. Already, we can see them in use, with 97,000 health and fitness related downloads currently available for mobile technology a figure that’s only going to keep on growing as demand rises. This means that by next year, 50% of all smartphone users will have at least one such app on their phone.
With over half of the population likely to be utilising this technology within the span of just 12 months, it would be hard for anyone to deny that mobile healthcare is about to hit the bigtime. Why not get on board and give it a try yourself?
