e-healthcare

Access to medical information, care and treatment is one of the most essential necessities in any civilized society. e-Healthcare is a result of the technology e-revolution applied to the healthcare sector. Compared to the United States, Europe has been slow in adapting to this new technology. Though at first in many countries the medical community kept on rejecting the use of Internet in healthcare, e-healthcare has transpired to become the most 'happening' trend in the world.

The Main driver affecting changes in healthcare sector are most patient’s thirst to access information from data-banks to see what is going on as well as access to patient data. Other drivers are long waiting period for appointments and proved success of e-revolution in other day-to-day activities. e-healthcare promises faster, easier treatment using Internet and information technology.

Relationship of a patient with doctor has significantly changed. Patients have become keener on information providence. He/She doesn’t like to rely completely on medical experts; self-diagnosis, self-monitoring and self-treatment are growing equally important. Concept of e-healthcare satisfies all the need of today’s patient and provides utmost delivery of healthcare service by providing an opportunity to patient and physician to work together.

 

Portal

Today Internet is not only used by professionals but also by the average man and may be for longer time and more purposes. There are over 100,000 healthcare websites on the Internet. Vendors providing solutions for e-healthcare find Internet the most suitable medium as-

- it is constantly updated

- its discrete

- highly interactive

- personalised

- maximum availability, 24 hrs. a day

- ideal medium to offer information on service or product

- easy availability as on computer workstations, smart pones, digital interactive TV, handheld PCs.

Health portal serves as front door to an Internet surfer. An ideal health portal on Internet offers-

- daily health news

- health tips

- risk factor information

- risk prevention information

- self tests (self diagnosis)

- contact address & chat rooms for discussion

- direct contact with doctors, insurance companies, self-help groups, scientists, suppliers,.. etc.

- online shopping for pharmaceuticals and other health related products (depending on national legislation)

In the buzz of e-healthcare, most affected people are patients and medical experts and the most affected industries are pharmaceutical industry and the insurers.

 

Patients

e-healthcare solutions are patient focused and thus its maximum benefits go to the patients. Patient gains greater knowledge and gets advice at personal level. Apart from getting quality information, the patient saves his valuable time; can avoid long queues for appointments. A patient can discuss his problems with his chosen medical expert and get the treatment or can have a videoconference session. Insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies can also be contacted directly from some websites. Above all it’s cost effective and efficient than the current system.

 

Medical Experts

Most doctors use the Internet to gain knowledge. e-healthcare solutions helps medical experts by giving them access to a patient’s information at any given time. It also allows them to share the information with other experts among the healthcare organisation for further opinions. It increases efficiency of the system by providing secure access to patient information, diagnostics and other systems to a range of medical experts. Apart from this it provides automatic and reliable monitoring of chronic cases like patients having diabetes, coronary heart troubles, etc.

 

Pharmaceutical Companies

For pharmaceutical companies and medical diagnostic suppliers it opens a new platform in the direction of direct-to-customer market. It will cut the industry supply chain by reaching direct to the consumer. This shortens the time to market the product. Depending on the country’s legislation, online shopping of medicine and other simple diagnostic tools have become more possible eg. www.drugstore.com , www.Rx.com.

 

Insurers

Many public and private insurance systems are taking advantage of e-revolution; they are available online to guide the people or to advice the people in healthcare sector. The best example is www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk National Health Service (UK) is available to the people via Internet; it provides information about NHS and how to use its services, facts and advice on health queries and pages on 200 specific diseases and their treatments.

 

Industry

e-healthcare industry is still under developing phase. Many leading IT companies like CSC, GE Medical Systems, McKesson HBOC Inc, Agilent Technologies, Philips, Torax, etc are already advancing ahead to serve the healthcare industry. They provide consultancy, Internet based networking technologies, clinical measurement and diagnostic solutions and IT solutions in patientcare, management, monitoring and the imaging field.

The only problem healthcare industry faces today is lack of funding, which is begging to change in some countries. The Healthcare sector and organisations until now have spend only 2-3% of their annual budget on technology and only 6-8% on other information intensive industries. TekPlus estimates that the internet-healthcare market will reach $400 billion by 2005.

 

Negative Side

As in all other concepts even e-healthcare faces some dark sides, the majority of which lies in the pharmaceutical sector. Pharmaceutical companies are using Internet as a marketing medium for all types of drugs- prescription and non-prescription. By doing so they try to reach medical professionals but at the same time also target the vulnerable consumer too. There are certain drugs and medical diagnostic tools, which are prescribed in one country and not prescribed in others. (eg. Viagra, HIV medication, HIV testing kits, etc.) With the help of online shopping on Internet it becomes easily available to the people where it shouldn’t be unless safe guards are already in place. Also certain diagnostic tools like home HIV-testing kits causes serious trouble if not read properly.

 

Conclusion

e-revolution in healthcare sector has already started showing positive results; healthcare organisations and health services have already started taking advantage of it. Few examples are;

- NHS went online with the backing of Isoft-Microsoft

- Successful access providence to medical imaging data to remote patients and medical experts by MediOL Image-Match Systems (Medical Online, Inc.) using HP’s (Compaq) Proliant & Alphaserver systems.

- Successful healthcare websites like www.eHealthCare.net

If the minor dark sides can be avoided, many of the changes will be beneficial to all the stakeholders- patients, health professionals, pharmaceutical industry and insurers. A greater urgency must now be given to implementing e-healthcare throughout the world as more and more successful examples become apparent. In addition revolutionised healthcare infrastructure is also a great help in natural/chemical/biological disasters.

 

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Ref: TP0052A02V01