By - Mark Curtis
Category - Port Of Miami Hotels
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami
Port Of Miami Hotels |
In the not-too-distant future, you'll receive a full diagnosis and cure from your smartphone before you have even realized you're unwell. While this may seem like science fiction, it's on the cusp of becoming a reality. Digital is set to embark on a path of radical transformation in the health and wellness sector and in doing so it will help us to overcome some of the most significant challenges we face in health care.
We have an aging society and as elderly people account for a larger share of the population, the prevalence of long-term health problems will increase. This will cause a bigger cost burden and pressure health systems to accommodate an aging workforce.
Furthermore, lifestyle-related chronic health problems, including obesity and diabetes, are on the rise with dramatic implications for health service budgets. The cost of supporting these demographic trends is unsustainable but digital services are likely to be part of the solution society is looking for.
One trend that's captured the imagination of many is "body hacking" or understanding the "quantified self." Whether it's an app tracking your dietary intake or a wearable band counting the physical activity you undertake each day, these devices provide you with the tools to understand your health immediately based on the data your body has provided.
Every individual can benefit from better access to information about their bodies and greater awareness leads to better understanding of the consequences. Little by little this starts to change behaviors.
The growth in availability of portable and highly connected health devices will drive an expectation in society to be aware of our own health and more pro-active in the lifestyle choices we make. People will use technology to prevent and diagnose disease, and in some cases, bypass the doctor's clinic by taking health care into their own hands, or at the least go armed to the doctor with helpful diagnostic information.
Our informed insight will mean that the doctor's role will change. They will become coaches, rather than a source of initial diagnosis. Self-diagnostic tools will empower doctors to monitor, prevent and treat medical conditions. One early example of this is the ECG attachment for the iPhone, which is already capable of producing medical-grade data.
Read: How your smartphone will soon get a whole lot smarter
Private health care organizations will tap into health applications and their capacity for diagnosis as a result, and will offer these widely to consumers. Your smartphone will come to know your body better than you know yourself and doctors will provide a health care service based on your measured behavior and key health indicators.
Imagine taking a picture of a rash or ailment with your mobile, uploading it to a diagnostic app and receiving a tailored diagnosis based on the information from the picture, coupled with your personal data that the mobile device has already collected. This is the private data driven future we are seriously looking at, both in developed countries with unsustainable health care costs, but also in countries where people do not have affordable access to health care.
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