Smartphones have become an integral part of day to day life. As they say nowadays, “there is an app for everything”; it is true indeed. Nowadays there is an application for things ranging from reminders to calorie check to which medicine to take and what alternative medicines are available if the physician prescribed medicine is not in stock.
With the intimate involvement of mobile phones in people’s lives, it makes sense for physicians to make effective use of mobile phones too to provide better care to their patients. There are several opportunities that mobile health tools can offer and which can help the physicians to communicate more effectively with their patients. Let us look at a few ways the smartphone can be used to boost patient care.
Smart Use of Smartphones
Certain benefits which the physicians can derive from the usage of smartphones are:
- Connectivity of care team: The team usually uses different systems and EMR platforms which lead to missed opportunities and lack of coordinated care. With the help of mobile health solution the entire care team is connected to one virtual platform. For instance, the primary care physician (PCP) will receive alerts on real time everytime one of his patients is admitted to the emergency room, in such cases it allows him to actively participate in decision making. This has clinical as well as cost benefits.
- Immediate access to clinical information: The decisions that physicians take are made on the basis of patient’s clinical information which are usually stored on EHR. Hence, it is time consuming to get this information. Mobile health tools can be integrated with EHR so that the clinical information is available to the care team on real time.
- Enhance patient satisfaction: The patients can also feel assured and know that irrespective of which care team is handling their case, they are abreast with their situation. This way, they do not need to repeat the symptoms time and again.
Future Trends: Gazing into the Crystal Ball
Mobile devices hold an exciting future prospect and there are several new things to look forward to. Applications that can address chronic health conditions like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. will be quite helpful as they present serious problems to healthcare professionals. Furthermore, applications which can connect the patient to the caregiver will also be beneficial. These are just the tip of the iceberg and there are many more ways that mobile health tools can help in patient care giving. MedicalBillersandCoders.com has an astute team of individuals who understand the growing trend of mobile devices and have embraced this new technology to improve their services and assist the providers.