Virtual care, opening up new vistas

The coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the whole world, in future with use of healthcare technology and Artificial Intelligence we can deal with crisis and can improve care by virtual means. Telemedicine, mobile health, virtual conferencing, remote healthcare, and monitoring will be future of patient management.

Healthcare information technology. HIT will come in big way in medical care, it will apply knowledge and skill in the form of innovation for resolving healthcare challenges. Main purpose of technology is to improve productivity, enhance access to quality healthcare, manage staff, and operational processes. With the proper use healthcare technology medical sector can deal with issues such as high costs, long waiting time, and limited access to insurance.

Deploying new digital tools and services has the potential to increase consumer satisfaction, improve medication adherence, and help consumers track and monitor their health. To maintain or even re-earn the trust of consumers, organizations should demonstrate reliability, transparency, and most importantly, a sense of empathy in how they operate.

Immunisation. There will be massive immunisation drive to cover world pollution including children. Regular doses will be followed by booster shots (yearly or two yearly) to cover mutant strains. Pharmaceutical companies will collaborate extensively for manufacturing, supply chain, post surveillance studies and storage. Digital vaccination platform will have to build to inform public, schedule vaccination, monitor outcomes and for supply chain management. Global Immunization for COVID-19 vaccine is a critical component of the United States strategy to reduce COVID-19-related illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths and to help restore societal functioning. The goal of the government is to have enough COVID-19 vaccine for all people who need to be vaccinated.

Tele consultation. More and more patient interaction will go virtually. Through phone calls, video call, messages, chat, virtual visits, remote monitoring, and patient engagement tools. This will reduce foot traffic at clinics and hospitals. Telecons ultation will not be limited to prescribing online medication but will extend to full counselling seasons, doorstep collection of blood sample by dedicated team of technicians, portable X-rays, online line appointment for procedures needs to done at healthcare centre, door step supply of medications, and home care nurses. Hospital will be place for extremely ill patient or for surgical care.

Hospital budget. Will be diverted for immediate needs, equipment (like oxygen generators, and oxygen concentrators) to establish and maintain digital platforms, virtual care, remote patient monitoring, and other IT capabilities. So, cost cutting will be priority for hospital to divert budgets for emergency needs, payments for new drugs and devices. Hospitals will also lobby hard to receive revenues from telehealth services. As costs increase, health plans will pay the increase to those they must and reduce payments to others.

Mental health disorders are also a leading cause of disease burden in the region. The majority of people with moderate to severe mental health disorders have no access to essential health and social care. The global strategy on mental health provides a comprehensive list of interventions to strengthen national mental health programmes and to improve access to care. Intensive work with international and regional experts resulted in the development of a more focused regional framework to scale up action on mental health which is now available to countries. The framework covers measures in four areas: governance, healthcare, promotion and prevention, and surveillance and monitoring. All countries can implement these measures, irrespective of their income.