Excessive healthcare prices, medical malpractice, poor high quality of care: the listing goes on and on when defining healthcare in Bangladesh. An excessive amount of is at stake when a healthcare system is suffering from these points. And it’s the sufferers that suffer essentially the most. Bangladesh doesn’t lack expertise within the medical career, but it surely absolutely falls quick in management and dedication to enhancing the healthcare system.
Well being data expertise (Well being IT) can largely remedy these issues.
Well being IT might be something from software program to the web, computer systems, cell functions, laptops and smartphones that ease communication in caring for sufferers. The first targets of Well being IT are to avoid wasting affected person data electronically and facilitate communication between suppliers. After all, at a sophisticated degree, it facilitates the change of knowledge amongst all healthcare suppliers.
Saving affected person’s knowledge electronically is vital to enhancing care. In Bangladesh, physicians nonetheless use pen and paper to put in writing prescriptions. Typically, it’s not legible. Prescriptions get misplaced. Sufferers should carry their healthcare paperwork with them when visiting a doctor. Solely a small proportion of suppliers use computer systems to avoid wasting affected person’s knowledge. They both don’t have the assets to take care of digital data, or they’re merely not all for doing so as a result of lack of necessities. So, it’s totally on the affected person to avoid wasting their prescription or bear in mind their medicine. For aged individuals, it’s much more cumbersome. Well being IT can dramatically enhance record-keeping.
The USA applied a Well being Data Know-how for Financial and Scientific Well being (HITECH) Act in 2009 that requires physicians to take care of data electronically. In 2009, the nation was not a great distance forward of the place Bangladesh is now when it comes to medical knowledge administration. To advertise data expertise in healthcare, the federal authorities supplied monetary incentives to suppliers to fulfill the prices of this new requirement. The legislation was adopted by huge diffusion of Well being IT. It, in truth, revolutionised healthcare. Sufferers now not wanted to hold and save their prescriptions, lab assessments, analysis outcomes, and many others, because the physicians started to avoid wasting them on their units. Prescriptions have been despatched to pharmacies electronically. Bangladesh can take steps towards digital well being data to perform these targets.
One essential side of Well being IT is improved coordination between suppliers. Sufferers want to maneuver from one supplier to a different for remedy. Within the present state of affairs, new suppliers will usually require sufferers to get a brand new analysis/lab check, regardless that the affected person has already accomplished that process with one other supplier. This results in extra bills, along with bodily and psychological hardships; it will get particularly tougher on low-income households. To keep away from this, suppliers have to be keen to gather knowledge from one other supplier of the affected person earlier than their go to utilizing cellphone, fax, and even mail. It permits the treating doctor to research the affected person’s medical historical past previous to the go to. The provision of such knowledge earlier than an encounter not solely improves care, but in addition reduces prices when it comes to avoiding pointless medical procedures.
At a extra superior stage, expertise can permit knowledge change in the complete healthcare ecosystem, digitally and routinely. Utilizing the web and software program, clinicians can see affected person’s knowledge saved within the healthcare techniques utilizing their demographic data akin to identify, date of beginning, deal with, and many others. This superior stage is simpler mentioned than performed, however it’s potential. Ninety-six % of Florida’s hospitals are able to sharing knowledge electronically in real-time utilizing Well being IT. There are various legal guidelines within the US requiring healthcare suppliers to share their affected person’s well being data with different suppliers, as and when applicable. This supplies the affected person’s medical historical past to attending clinicians, permitting for higher service.
In the course of the peak of Covid-19, telehealth (or telemedicine) was used to deal with sufferers throughout the globe, together with in Bangladesh. With the development of Well being IT, telehealth might be the first supply of healthcare for rural sufferers who lack transportation and good docs. Utilizing expertise, clinicians from wherever within the nation can see sufferers, irrespective of their location. They’ll even present free medical recommendation by way of face-face-face encounters, closing the large hole in healthcare between rural and concrete populations. Sufferers can handle their docs’ appointments utilizing cell apps at their fingertips. Due to the supply of superior expertise, telehealth took a giant leap throughout Covid-19 within the US, and, in truth, the healthcare group sees telehealth as the longer term.
Healthcare is notoriously complicated. By investing in Well being IT, we will revolutionise public well being. The position of the federal government comes foremost in remodeling legacy healthcare into a contemporary system. By utilizing legal guidelines and rules, in addition to monetary incentives, the federal government can actually take the lead to supply higher take care of all residents. It’s an formidable objective, however it’s inside attain.
ABM Uddin is a programme supervisor on the Florida Company for Well being Care Administration.
