8 Ways Software is Making You Healthier

These advancements help consumers, pharmaceutical companies, government programs, hospitals, and other private healthcare organizations give/receive better care.

Here are some of the most exciting ways that software is improving healthcare.

Software Gives You Better Access & Diagnoses

The idea is relatively simple. Teach a computer how to speak English and then teach it how to analyze symptoms, diagnose illnesses, provide healthcare recommendations.

Health chatbots like Conversa use natural language processing technology to “listen,” respond and provide a diagnosis, treatment, and necessary prescription drugs.

What makes a chatbot better (in some regards) than a human doctor? Accessibility and data.

These chatbots can be accessed from anywhere, helping rural or disabled folks get affordable healthcare. On top of that, they can access your personal healthcare data and make scientific deductions based on your history, age, and any synced devices (like an Apple Watch).

It Helps Prevent Opioid Overdoses

The opioid epidemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people over the past 20 years.

Many states have turned to software to help reduce the number of opioid prescriptions and resulting overdoses. For example, Arizona passed a law requiring pharmacies to record in a database anytime they prescribed more than five days of an opioid.

The result? There were 6% few opioid prescriptions written. Plus, doctors could easily see which patients had an opioid prescription in the past, allowing them to treat them differently if necessary.

It Can Help You Lose Weight

There are about 100 diets and methodologies for losing weight, but very few have used data and software to change habits and encourage weight loss. But that’s slowly changing.

Software companies like Noom and WW are using applications to log and analyze food, exercise, and bodyweight.

Hardware companies like FitBit and Garmin are using software and APIs to track and report data to other platforms, giving big pictures of health and wellness.

It Can Monitor Your Insulin

Rather than testing blood and estimating the amount of insulin required, software is using personal data and advanced algorithms to accurately monitor blood sugar and release insulin when needed. There are a few players in this game, including Bigfoot Biomedical and Glooko.

It Manages Patient Capacity at Hospitals

This year, we’ve learned how important patient capacity and flow is. Being able to understand ICU bed availability and nurse utilization helps hospitals plan, schedule resources, and know when to ask for support. This technology can also help hospitals move patients from one area of the hospital to another (ICU to less severe).

It Turns Smartphones into a Medical-Grade Monitoring

Binah.ai recently figured out a way to turn your smartphone camera into a medical-grade, vital signs monitoring device.

This will allow users to take a photo or video of themselves and see data on heart rate, oxygen saturation, and respiration rate. No wearable required.

It Helps Physicians Monitor Chronic Illness

One big reason for chronic illnesses is that patients don’t have willpower, knowledge, or support. If doctors could monitor heart rate, blood pressure, weight, and other markers, they could reach out more often and provide timely support.

Software platforms like Rimidi are allowing doctors to do just that. These platforms work with a number of devices, collecting data into a dashboard, and giving overall health scores. Then, a doctor can reach out more often to provide support.

Software Guides Your Meditation

Meditation used to be something that few could do. It seemingly required an expensive or time-consuming workshop.

But now, apps like Calm are allowing anyone with a smartphone to practice meditation, which has been touted for benefits like reducing stress, controlling anxiety, improving sleep, and possibly protecting against age-related memory loss.

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These are just some of the ways that software is rapidly transforming healthcare. Every day, there are advancements in technology that improve these systems and create accessible solutions for patients, doctors, and businesses.

Devetry works with clients like Health Sqyre and TerumoBCT to create software solutions that improve patient experiences and allow better data management. To see how we can help your healthcare company, contact us.