How mobile technology is changing the nation’s healthcare
The world is rapidly changing, and technology is constantly evolving, pushing boundaries and enhancing the lives of our ever-growing population.
The global digital health industry is adapting to our needs and challenging health issues and literally putting healthcare into our hands by creating intelligent mobile technology to enable us to transform our lives and alleviate stress on our health service.
In a world where we have over 2.6bn smartphones and we can FaceTime friends and relatives’ half way around the world, it makes sense to be able to have a video consultation with a doctor within minutes, rather than waiting weeks for an appointment. It means problems can be tackled early on, rather than being allowed to get worse while people wait to see a doctor.
Harnessing technology and digital innovation is critical to the future of our NHS. GPs are coming under increasing pressure to serve a UK population of over 60million people and consequently people are turning up at A&E when their problem could have been dealt with by a GP.
The Now Healthcare Group is one of a number digital health companies in the UK who are disrupting the healthcare market and creating digital models to radicalise how the patient interacts with both the GP.
Technology enables us to live longer and healthier lives from surgical robots, IoT in smart hospitals and smart cities, AI and chatbots. Digital health is disrupting patient care in new and exciting ways – this is being recognized by national health bodies such as the NHS (here in the UK with their 2020 vision), Hong Kong Health Authority with their transformation initiatives and the Hong Kong smart cities program to name but two countries.
Founder and CEO of Now Healthcare Group Lee Dentith established the business and an app to connect to a GP and/or health professional, after being frustrated when he could not get an appointment for his son with his doctor.
Ever the problem solver, Lee started to think about a technological solution which could help alleviate the huge stress on the increasing population in the UK and work collaboratively with the NHS, GPs and health professionals to provide transformational changes to radicalise the present system.
Lee created a Skype style platform to effectively set up a way to speak to a GP. He then created his own fully NHS accredited and approved Pharmacy, which can dispatch medicines anywhere inside the UK and into Europe (under an ECEU directive) and in a matter of months, he created a solution, where a patient could speak to a doctor live and the doctor can prescribe on the system and automate prescriptions – with a total end-to-end solution.
Older people can benefit massively from technology (as recent ONS figures show the proportion of older people using the internet to keep in touch with family members in the past six years has doubled) and giving those particularly with chronic care conditions and in need of repeat prescriptions, GP access from the comfort of their home can transform their quality of life.
The digital health sector is probably one of the fastest and most innovative sectors in the world today. It is the next battle ground for the tech giants with Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and others focusing their financial might and muscle on digital health platforms and solutions.
We are just scratching the surface with the rise of digital health technology and with the further development of AI (artificial intelligence), big data and robotics, we are moving into a totally transformational era, where ultimately that piece of small technology in your hand can not only help with your health but potentially save your life.
