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Wearables – Friend or Foe?

By |2018-09-22T21:33:27+02:00September 22nd, 2018|General, News|

Wearables – Friend or Foe??

Earlier this week, Apple launched the latest version of the Apple watch.

 This is one of the first mainstream devices available to the public that can carry out ECG tests. Obviously there is the ability to detect heart conditions such as arrhythmic beating and low heart rates.

This exciting development is a real indication of our need and demand for wearable devices such as this. The smart health watches have really increased in popularity over a very short space of time.

We are fast becoming a worldwide community for whom healthcare, and taking the responsibility for our own health is now the norm. The days where generations before us were reliant on the family doctor are becoming more distant, as we now plug into our devices and search for our health solutions online.

 

But Could There Be A Problem??

This all sounds extremely positive. However, the chair of the Royal College of Surgeons Commission on The Future of Surgery has warned us of potential problems with our technological age.

 

Richard Kerr believes that the influx of health information to patients does have the potential to create problems.

He warns that Doctors and Hospitals will see more patients who may be both “confused and scared” about health information that they have accessed.  Kerr states that “..the NHS will need to be ready to handle an influx of patients with potentially valid concerns about their risk of falling ill in the future.” – as reported in Engineering and Technology.

 

Essentially this will lead to the “worried well” to be concerned about potential medical issues. Issues that they may not experience for many years.  While prevention is both key and the best solution, we do need to draw a balance between unnecessarily worrying about future possibilities.

 

So this is essentially, where the technology side of the health industry, and the human side of the industry need to meet!  Wearable technology is a fantastic development in our health care.  We do need to be very careful as to how this technology is used or misused. And it is an issue that Aimedis takes very seriously.

 

There is always worry about the health industry becoming impersonal. An institution fueled by AI robots with no compassion or concern  for the people who use it.

But ask any medical student studying to become a doctor . Yes it’s factual and sometimes detached. But a lot of study time is spent on how to communicate with patients, how to care and truly make a patient feel at ease.

 

At the end of the day – we need to ensure there is a balance between the technology, and the human!

The technology is enhanced by the human touch.  Just as the doctors’ work and research is undoubtedly enhanced by the available technology.

 

It’s an amazing time to be in the healthtech industry, and a challenging time as well.

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Aerosols – Are They Back for Good

By |2018-09-12T22:28:46+02:00September 12th, 2018|General|

Aerosols – Are They Back for Good?

Let’s face it – aerosols have got quite a bad reputation in our culture at the moment.

After their use in abundance during the ‘80’s (remember that hair!), to their bad publicity in the 90’s and their blame in the destruction of the ozone layer with the negative impact on the environment.  It really would take something pretty spectacular to redeem the poor aerosols reputation.

Well, it looks like science may have found just the solution!

 

A team of researchers from MIT have found a use for aerosols which is not only extremely useful, but beneficial for both our health and the environment.

They have managed to develop a spray which contains nanobots.  These are essentially tiny sensors which can be used for a whole range of tasks – even diagnosing health issues.  Their research was published here in Nature Nanotechnology.

 

So how does it work?

Each sensor in the spray contains two parts.

The first part is a tiny molecule called a colloid, which can remain in liquid or air indefinitely.

The second part is a complex circuit, which contains a chemical detector, and can also produce its own power needed to collect data.

Researchers have managed to graft these two parts together and have converted them into a spray form, which we know as an aerosol.

 

So what does this mean in our day to day life?

Well, it is possible for the engineers to spray the aerosol down a pipeline if they were looking for a breach on the pipelines system for example a crack or hole in the pipe. They can then use the data from the aerosol to exactly pinpoint where there is a problem, such as an encounter with a chemical which should not be there which would indicate where there is a potential breach in the pipe.

This process would have otherwise required a manual inspection of the exterior of the pipe which could be  time consuming, labor intensive, costly and not to mention physically difficult.

But what does this mean for health?

The MIT team noted that this exact same technology could be used to diagnose health issues. For example – The nanobots could travel along a patient’s digestive tract gathering data, and relaying it to a medical professional. The potential here is that the nanobots would be able to flag up a problem or a potential problem helping to diagnose the patient in the least invasive way possible.

 

Does this sound like the stuff of dreams?

Well yes it does! But don’t forget that not so long ago, wearable devices such as trackers that we now use daily to monitor blood pressure, heart rate and even sleep patterns were once seen as impossible technological devices, reserved for Hollywood films and science fiction.

 

At the end of the day, health care and technology are both advancing together at a phenomenal rate. At Aimedis, part of our focus is on harnessing these technologies, and using the technology available through wearable devices to improve patient monitoring and care.

Aerosol nanobots may be here and a part of your routine health care diagnostics sooner than you think!

 

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Smart bandages can change the way wounds are being managed worldwide

By |2018-07-26T23:43:20+02:00Juli 26th, 2018|Allgemein|

April 28, 2007. A trainee doctor was bandaging a diabetic foot wound of a lady. Let’s call her Fiona. Fiona was a veteran of the diabetic clinic. Her file was 2 inches thick, and she knew about dressing a wound better than most of the trainee doctors. She was also very frustrated as the wound just would not heal! And while her diabetes was well controlled, she was there every month, with the same wound that would almost heal and go bad again.

At that time, the doctor often wondered what it would be like to have a dressing that could talk to him. If the dressing could tell him the condition of the wound without even removing it. If the dressing could deliver a dose of medicine without him having to disturb the delicate granulation tissue that forms the base of a healing wound.

10 years later, this hope is coming to life. A new ‘smart bandage’ is in making, and this will revolutionise the way wounds are treated today!

Smart bandage

Till the start of this century, doctors were also philosophers. Some were physicists, some chemists. This multidisciplinary background helped them to overcome many diseases, leading to many discoveries. As medicine specialised, doctors became more focussed on treating, and thus lost the subtle touch with the development part of new therapies. Fast forward a few decades, Universities are promoting multidisciplinary teams again to tackle the problems of delivering healthcare.

A similar team from Tufts University, USA, has developed a prototype smart bandage. This bandage can sense the condition of the wound and deliver a dose of medicine when needed. This is a revolution in two aspects.

Firstly, knowing the condition of the wound without opening a bandage is a huge deal. Many times, the patient is sent home with a bandage. Due to improper care, the wound may not heal well, or even become infected. This is often discovered too late, during a routine visit to the doctor. So, if a patient gets an alert on his phone to see a doctor, an infection can be tackled earlier.

And secondly, the current dose delivery systems like patches deliver a constant dose. They are not customised to deliver a dose when needed. So, delivery of medicine when required or as doctors call it, SOS application, will improve wound healing.

How does a smart bandage work?

The smart bandage takes into account the pH and the temperature of the wound. A normally healing would have a pH between 5.5 and 6.5, whereas an infected wound may have pH well above 6.5. The temperature is raised in an infected wound, a marker of inflammation.

The team lead by Sameer Sonkusale, PhD professor of electrical and computer engineering at Tufts University has developed a smart system of reusable electronic components integrated into the bandage. The patch senses the pH, temperature, and tissue oxygenation, and sends the data to a device with Bluetooth. This will help in the collection of data and delivery of medicine.

The bandage has two parts. A reusable electronic module that connects to a Bluetooth device and a disposable bilayer patch with sensors and therapeutics. The two are attached by a detachable flex cable that allows a change of patch. The patch has sensors that sense the pH and temperature and sends the signal to the electronic module. The patch also has a hydrogel layer that holds the medicine in place. So, a signal from the electronic module can release the drug to the wound by using heat.

3D printing and reusable parts make the bandage cheaper to use, and the thinness of the patch makes it practical for complex wounds. This system has been tested in vitro-human trials are still not performed. However, this is a hope for those like Fiona who need some smart tech to ease their pain.

We are indeed fortunate to live in such exciting times!

Also, read AR and VR are the new tools in your doctor’s bag

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AR and VR are the new tools in your doctor’s bag

By |2018-07-16T10:52:45+02:00Juli 15th, 2018|Allgemein|

Medicine has always been an obscure discipline to practise. A doctor has been looking at with awe and respect, and until quite recently, was often an unapproachable person. However, this is changing rapidly. He is a service provider and you, the patient, are a consumer, and thus protected by the prevailing consumer laws.

Being good at medicine is not good enough

160 years ago, in 1858, Henry Gray published Gray’s Anatomy – the bible for every doctor. Back then, body snatchers were a prime source of obtaining cadavers for dissections. About 70 years later, the first antibiotic was discovered in the form of penicillin. Fast forward another 40 years, and people were still dying from simple infections. Today, these things would sound so alien! No antibiotics, illegally obtained bodies for dissection, people dying from simple infection rather than grave, life-threatening diseases. Medicine has come a long way since the time of Mr Gray (Surgeons use a Mr instead of Dr in the UK).

Today, a doctor is not expected to do his job, he has to be in a sensitive manner, warranted by the profession. He needs to have proper bedside manners in most of the medical schools. However, in the age of technology, this is not enough!

HealthTech in a new form

Today, medical schools have started recruiting the importance of telemedicine in the healthcare ecosystem. So, a doctor needs correct ‘webside’ manners in addition to having proper bedside manners. Teleconsultation is one solution for reaching out to patients. It is remotely, who does not have to go to a doctor. It is, therefore, a solution to the problem of skilled manpower in remote primary care facilities.

Augmented Reality is being tried out in a few medical schools to train doctors and nurses so that they are sufficiently prepared to attend patients. Similarly, VR environment helps them in preparing and practising sensitive surgeries without actually touching a patient.

What could be the future of healthTech in Medicine

Medical advances on the fronts of new drug discoveries have slowed down. Instead, pharmaceuticals are being used to improve their chances. The next big thing is biologicals and personalized medicine.

However, when it comes to the doctor’s clinic, a lot of things are changing as well. He has the tools to capture the patient’s data without having to spend on his computer. With IoT devices and integrated software, things are becoming easier for doctors. That said, there is still a huge scope for technology in his clinic.

Booking appointments, accessing patient’s history on arrival, easy accessing diagnostics and post-visit followup are not seamless in every hospital. Many patients do not spend more than 15 minutes talking to a doctor and may forget something. This might seem trivial to the patient, like a pain in the abdomen a few days back. However, there may be some implications for the course of treatment. Right now, a patient can not talk to the doctor again unless he makes an appointment.

This is what we are working on changing.

Aimedis in medicine

At Aimedis, we believe that a patient should have access to healthcare all the time. So, we provide an option to consult a doctor from the comfort of your own home. What more, so we provide a prescription facility *. If you are not sure about the diagnosis your own doctor gave, you can seek a second opinion using our portal. And when compared to the doctor visits, this ends up being quite cheap! We are not dissuading you from going to a doctor. We want to bring the doctor to you so that your recovery starts immediately.

So, read Is your doctor overworked? There might be a solution to this

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Is your doctor overworked? There might be a solution to this

By |2018-07-12T20:05:41+02:00Juli 12th, 2018|Allgemein|

What was the time when you were totally utterly exhausted? You were so cracked that you just crawled in the bed and slept for 20 hours straight? This is the life of most doctors in the world, without the part of sleeping for 20 straight hours!

A doctor often begins his career in the early 20s and works way his 60s. Officially, the doctors have work restrictions per week. A resident in Europe has a cap of 48 hours. A doctor in training in the USA ends up working for 60 hours as an average. However, there are cases when doctors often go without sleep for 30 hours, as described in the Atlantic.

Case in point

A neurosurgeon was working continuously for over 30 hours. When he got a break, he decided to go home. While driving, he blacked out and had a serious traffic accident. Luckily, he survived the crash. However, he was left with injuries that could have ended his career.

Some are not this lucky, though. Last year, a 35-year-old anesthesiologist died 96 hours straight. Dr Stefanus Taofik covers his colleagues’ shifts around the festival of Hari Raya in Indonesia. Hey, what was found dead in a hospital.

Work hours have other consequences as well. Some places like India, the residents often skip their breakfasts to manage the monumental amount of workload. This has led to an increase in the cases of TB among residents. A treatment of TB requires you to take an intensive course of medication for up to 9 months.

Consultants are no better off

This is the case with trainee doctors. However, the life of a consultant is no better. Many still work on weekends due to a shortage of skilled manpower. In the UK, 71% of the hospitals report a shortage of manpower.

Long hours, increased workload, everything is added to the stress of a doctor is always under. This often leads to burnouts, especially in highly demanding faculties like Emergency Medicine, OBGYN, Internal Medicine, and General Surgery. In addition to the stress from work, doctors have to attend regular seminars and lectures to keep their medical knowledge up to date. Factoring in a busy schedule is a very difficult task.

Thankfully, technology is helping out doctors in maintaining the high standards of medical care.

Technology in Medical practice

Of course, there is a high amount of tech involved in the diagnostic machinery. Robotic precision surgeries are becoming more popular by each passing day. However, tech is also finding value in the doctor’s consulting room. 50 years ago, the tech a doctor would use a doctor, a manometer to check for blood pressure, and a stethoscope. Today, doctors are using IoT devices to collect and record information, saving precious time.

IoT and other m-health devices have made a doctor’s life easy by helping him track the patient’s health even after the consultation. This also reduces out-of-hours phone calls from the patient, and they do, the doctor has some data to look at and a course of action.

That said, these devices help reduce the risk of depression.

Aimedis for doctors

Dr Michael and Dr Ben have been practising medicine for over 15 years now. They saw an unmet need and decided to found Aimedis. Using our platform, doctors can connect their devices and see the data in one place. They can also get the patient’s data from his fitness tracker and use it to track the well-being of the patient. If they want to see more patients, they can have a teleconsultation with the patient, saving their time for more serious patients. This kind of digital triage not only helps them manage their time better, it also takes the stress and fatigue from the long hours that they work.

The long hours in a doctor’s life are here to stay for a while. Our endeavour at Aimedis is at least a doctor’s life less stressful.

Also, read Why China is the next big market for AI in Healthcare

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Why China is the next big market for AI in Healthcare

By |2018-07-10T09:30:30+02:00Juli 10th, 2018|Allgemein|

Many developed nations had witnessed an advancement in medicine and technology going hand in hand. New medical discoveries were made possible with the help of technology, and technology developed as the demands for healthcare increased. This has helped them in developing a robust healthcare system, something that is adopted by many developing countries.

However, there are countries like China that have been practising medicine for centuries, and the technology is just catching up. The inherent advantage of this is that technology is already much ahead of the healthcare, and tried and tested models in the West can be replicated with ease.

This is what is happening in China, at least in the major cities. That said, the immense size of China leaves much to be desired when it comes to healthcare.

China, the hidden dragon

A few decades back, China was not on any major economic map. The only notable export was hard-working labour that helped build the infrastructure in many other countries, including the USA. Today, it is the major manufacturing hub from nails to iPhones. Almost every product has ‘Made in China’ embossed on it. Once known for cheap labour, it is now known for an advanced technological hub for manufacturing for most of the Fortune 500 companies.

With the world’s largest population spread over 9.6 B sq km, it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The population if 1.4 B is not spread evenly though, with cities housing a much larger population than the villages. Naturally, the development is not uniform, With cities like Shanghai and Beijing boasting about world-class infrastructure.

As a result, tertiary care hospitals are concentrated in the cities.

Healthcare in China

China spent about $0.85 trillion in 2016 on healthcare. China has a dual system of healthcare – Western, as well as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), is practised hand in hand across the country. About 40% of all health care delivered in China is TCM, and the government is promoting it even more to ease the burden on hospitals delivering Western medicine.

In China, almost everyone is insured by subscribing to a state-run insurance. However, they also pay out of their pockets to see a doctor. The hospitals are usually busy, and a patient does not get more than an average of 4-5 minutes in a consulting room.

When it comes to adoption of technology, more and more Chinese people are opting for Telemedicine these days. This is easier than say, in the USA, because reimbursement is not a hurdle. Most people pay out of their pockets anyway, so they try and get the best doctors online.

The penetration of IoT devices and Healthtech is low, despite a massive penetration of mobile devices. This poses an interesting opportunity. However, health tracking could take some time and incentive for a wider adoption to happen.

The tax reforms in China, most notably the ‘two invoice system’ is helping the Pharmaceutical companies with their distributions. In this, only two tax invoices can be issued – one by the manufacturer to a distributor, and second by the distributor to the hospital/pharmacy. Under this system, only one commissioned distributor is allowed in the procurement chain. This is reducing the pain points in the supply chain, avoiding delays.

The data norms in China are more relaxed. However, a structure is being put in place to manage the patient’s data in a better way. This poses a unique opportunity, as the structure is leaning towards being more open, allowing the data to be interoperable.

 Role of Aimedis in China

Due to our offerings, Chinese patients can consult doctors beyond their borders, for a nominal fee. The data generated is immense, so managing it is a challenge. Thankfully, with the help of AI and Blockchain, this data can be used meaningfully, benefiting all the stakeholders. People of the Republic will have more options to choose from, the Pharmaceutical and Insurance companies will have an access to concise data, and patients will have an option to share their own data if they want to, and earn some tokens in the process.

Also, read Why Japan, the Tech giant, still needs to improve Health Tech

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Why Japan, the Tech giant, still needs to improve Health Tech

By |2018-07-07T22:55:16+02:00Juli 7th, 2018|AI in news|

When it comes to biotechnology, Japan is leagues ahead of the western world. They have devices for delivering medicine, patches, nasal sprays that are unlike any other. However, when it comes to Healthtech, Japan sadly is not yet there.

Japanese Healthcare industry

At $472.6 B, Japan ranks third in the world when it comes to the healthcare expenditure, following the USA and China. A sizeable proportion of this is on healthcare delivery – medicines, operational costs, palliative care. However, the spendings on preventive healthcare are limited due to budgeting constraints.

The overall IoT market in Japan is forecasted to reach about $ 143.2 B. A sizeable portion would be healthcare IoT. The overall Healthcare IT market is projected to grow by 12.3% by 2020.

Despite these statistics, the tech giant is struggling, albeit ironically, with IT in healthcare. The market penetration of smartphones and connected devices is high (81.7%). However, the IT literacy among the healthcare workers is low, leading to an effective delivery of healthcare.

Opportunities for HealthTech in Japan

The tertiary care facilities are concentrated in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures (Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama). Delivering uniform healthcare across the country thus becomes a challenge. Although the adoption of health tech by individuals is high, there is no notable use of this data to delivering health care or amending the public policy in any way.

Japan has a simplistic healthcare cost coverage model. Everyone needs to have an insurance. The state covers 70% of the cost, and individuals cover the remaining. The cost-to-patient for procedures is capped, leading to lower spendings. That said, doctors, hospitals, and patients do not coordinate optimally, leading to lost opportunities.

This is a brilliant opportunity for integrating the existing healthcare systems under a single platform. The tech-savvy patients are already capturing their wellness parameters on a daily basis. This is not seen by the doctors though.

Japan has a sizable ageing population, with over 40% over the age of 55. Currently, the elderly in Japan are considered healthy and wealthy, with a significant number of them committing to their personal health. This explains the lower expenditures on healthcare, (about 7% of the GDP as against 17% in the USA.

That said, with a wider adoption of m-health and connected devices by the ageing population, monitoring of health will become easier for that country, easing the burden on preventive expenditures. As in the other developed nations, there is a scope for adoption of healthtech by the elderly, not limited to fitness trackers, m-health devices, remote diagnostics, and other means to track health and wellbeing, like digital scales and sleep trackers. In addition, AI and robotics have a role to play in diagnostics and screening, especially in the remote areas of the country.

Aimedis : what Japan needs right now

The core of Aimedis is connecting the stakeholders in healthcare with each other without a loss of information. Patients can seek a medical consultation, doctors can exchange notes, Hospitals can connect with each other for a seamless data transfer, in the event of a transfer of a patient. In addition, the Pharmaceuticals can plan their clinical trials effectively, and the insurance companies can improve their services.

Countries like Japan, with an ageing population, existing IT infrastructure, as well as a tech-hungry population could use such a seamless integration.

Also, read Why diagnosing leprosy in the Philippines is not a big problem any more: Learns

 

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Why diagnosing leprosy in the Philippines is not a big problem any more: Learns

By |2018-07-03T16:01:44+02:00Juli 3rd, 2018|AI in news|

If you are in the Western world, you might have heard about leprosy. The incidence of Leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, is so low in the USA and Europe, that it has fallen out of the public notice. However, more than 200,000 people suffer from this disease, mostly in South East Asia.

It is a bacterial disease caused by an organism similar to the one causes Tuberculosis. The patient can contract the disease and can go for years without displaying any outward signs. In the advanced stages, the disease is not contagious. However, it deforms the body of a person – fingers, toes, nose, and these may just fall off. An early diagnosis and a prompt treatment can prevent all this. However, diagnosing Leprosy is challenging, especially in a country like the Philippines.

Leprosy in the Philippines

The Philippines is a beautiful country made of 7641 islands, out of which, some 2000 are inhabited by about 103 Million people. The pristine beaches, scrumptious cuisine, and warm people make it an attractive place for tourists. However, the geographic makeup of the country poses operational challenges for the delivery of healthcare.

As it has so many islands, it is difficult for a healthcare visitor to conduct screening procedures. And if it is Leprosy, the patients may not even see a doctor until it is too late. The social stigma of the disease keeps them away from the civilisation, and the patients often are neglected by the family as well.

As the bigger hospitals and diagnostic centres are located far away, even the support staff in smaller clinics have a difficulty in getting things diagnosed. And even though there were just about 2000 odd cases of leprosy diagnosed in 2010, not everyone received an early treatment. There might be a fair share of undiagnosed cases due to various factors, including remoteness of diagnostic facilities, lack of training in diagnostic skills, and pure social stigma.

Learns: The Technological solution to the healthcare hurdle

However, we are in 2018 now! And technology is helping us overcome such hurdles. It did the same in the Philippines, as according to a report by the Guardian, Novartis Foundation teamed up with the department of health and developed a mobile-based diagnostic tool – Leprosy Alert and Response Network System (Learns).

It enables a healthcare worker, say a nurse, to click a photo of the lesion, and send it to a specialist. The specialist may be 100s of miles away, but he can diagnose it right away and chart a treatment pathway. This results in early diagnosis and prompt treatment, avoiding disfiguration.

The quality of life of such a patient will improve drastically, preventing a life of hardship and misery.

Aimedis for patients

At Aimedis, this is the core of our philosophy – an access to healthcare, wherever you are. We have tailored plans for patients – they can opt for the subscription-free plan and avail a pay-as-you-consult model, that, for a nominal fee, lets you interact with a specialist without the wait. There is a premium subscription where a patient can access a doctor round the clock, and also get a second opinion. He can also request for a prescription using the Aimedis medical team.

We hope that someday, technology and AI will help the standards of healthcare to become uniform all over the world.

Also, read How Aimedis is adding value to the Trillion Dollar Healthcare Industry

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Healthcare: What is stopping the trillion dollar industry from functioning optimally

By |2018-06-28T19:51:10+02:00Juni 28th, 2018|Allgemein|

Globally, healthcare is a trillion-dollar industry. In fact, according to a report by Deloitte, the global healthcare expenditure is projected to reach $8.7 trillion by 2020.  It is the third largest industry in the United States if you ignore the state spending, after Real estate and the financial sector.

With the massive scale and numerous players in this arena, healthcare delivery is anything but smooth. To begin with, it is not uniform throughout the world. Even in a developed country like the US, the level of care differs from hospital to hospital.

AI can tackle major hiccups in the delivery of healthcare. To understand how, though, let us look at the various nodes in the network of healthcare.

Healthcare delivery model

Healthcare is not simply a patient seeing a doctor. There are many stakeholders involved in the process. Even though the level of care might vastly differ from hospital to hospital, these stakeholders remain more or less constant.

  • Patient
  • Doctor
  • Hospital
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Insurance company/payer
  • Caregiver

A Patient’s journey

In a simplistic scenario, a patient feels ill and in most cases, Googles his symptoms. He then decides to see a doctor and seeks an appointment. The doctor examines the patient, seeks the previous medical records, diagnoses the illness, probably orders some lab tests, and prescribes medicines. The patient goes to the pharmacy and obtains the medicines, takes them and the condition may improve. If it does, he is out of the loop for a while. If not, he goes to see the doctor again and the cycle continues.

There are several pain points in this workflow.

Pain points for stakeholders

For the patient, getting credible information is difficult. Getting to see a doctor quickly is the next big hurdle. Sure, if there is an emergency, the doctor sees the patient right away. However, if it is not, the patient has to wait. There are very limited diagnostic tools that a patient can use on his own.

When he books an appointment, he might have to wait to see the doctor. He has to carry the medical records with him and remember to take his insurance details. When he takes the medicines, he won’t always see the doctor once he is alright.

And lastly, he might not have anyone who is undergoing the same trauma to discuss this with. In a doctor’s mind, an illness is serious or not-so-serious. However, for a patient, no illness is small if it is affecting his daily life!

For the doctor, there is only a limited set of patients he can see in a day. They often don’t have their medical records with them. In the recent months, more and more patients have been using health trackers to track fitness, Electrocardiograms, Blood pressure, just to name a few. This information is often not captured because of the plethora of apps used by the patients.

The feedback in the form of follow up from the patient is limited after the treatment. So, there is very little way of knowing the degree to which the treatment worked.

For the hospitals, it is a challenge in exchanging information as not everybody is using the same enterprise systems. So, when a patient is transferred from say, a primary care hospital to a tertiary one, there is no seamless flow of information. It is even more challenging when one of the hospitals is overseas.

For the Pharmaceuticals, they know the value and volumes of SKUs (stock keeping units) sold. However, it is often impossible to know exactly what a particular medicine was prescribed for and to whom, including the prognosis.

For the insurers, the reimbursement workflow is difficult to follow and much efforts go into tracking the existing treatment options, medicines prescribed, as well as treatments given. In addition, it is difficult to track overseas treatments.

For the caregivers, the challenge is knowing what is going on! They get a limited set of instructions to take care of the patient as most of the professional attention is given to the patient. They really have no one to talk to anonymously, and they have to join a support group, if one is available nearby.

To conclude

Healthcare industry has its challenges because the various stakeholders are not connected seamlessly. There is a loss of information at each interface and it deters the whole machinery from operating optimally. And this is where Aimedis comes in the picture.

How is Aimedis going to tackle these pain points? Read our next article: How Aimedis Is Adding Value to the Trillion Dollar Healthcare Industry

(Images: Pixabay, Pexels)
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How Aimedis is adding value to the Trillion Dollar Healthcare Industry

By |2018-06-28T19:23:05+02:00Juni 28th, 2018|Allgemein|

In the previous article, you saw the various pain points that are impeding the global healthcare industry from functioning optimally. Doctors Michael and Ben, had this in mind when they decided to get the Aimedis team together. With experts and advisors from healthcare technology and blockchain, Aimedis conceptualised the dream of integrating the healthcare system globally.

Role of AI in the Global healthcare industry

Due to its sheer size and spread, it is very difficult to integrate the healthcare industry under one roof. There are too many variables. However, with a technologically aware patient and a forward-looking Hospital chain, the interactions become a bit easier.

Add to this equation the most organised members – pharmaceuticals and insurance, and suddenly, the situation is a lot less chaotic. Using AI and deep learning, Aimedis can add immense value to each of the stakeholders – patients, doctors, hospitals, Pharmaceuticals, Insurance companies (payers), and caregivers.

Let us have a look.

For the patient

As discussed in the earlier article, the pain points for a patient are a lack of access to credible information, delay in interacting with a doctor, and a lack of support group. In addition, there is little to no control over the data generated throughout the patient’s journey through the healthcare system.

Aimedis has solutions for this and much more! Patients can get credible information about their condition through a meticulously curated database collated from credible publications. One can e-visit a doctor through our platform using telemedicine. If one wishes to undergo a medical/surgical treatment abroad, we can help you do that using our chain of partner hospitals.

This covers the physical aspect of an illness. However, using our platform, one can interact with patients who are suffering from a similar illness and form a support group. A patient can interact with others under complete anonymity. And if he so chooses, he can share his data with Pharmaceutical companies that will lead to an advancement of research, and he can earn some tokens by doing so.

For the doctor

It is tough to see all the data pertaining to the health of the patient at one place. There are numerous apps that are not standardised. In addition, he can only see a limited set of patients in the hospital.

Luckily, using our platform, the doctor can access all the information at one place. He can also access medical history of the patient without going through tonnes of paperwork. And if he chooses to, he can consult with the patient remotely, saving his time for other patients. He can also see international patients using our remote consulting feature.

For the Pharma companies

Recruiting patients for a trial is an onerous task. It takes a lot of time doing so, delaying the trial by months. In addition, there is no accurate capture of the drugs administered and the results due to a limited follow-up.

Aimedis, using the blockchain, can make this information available to the pharma companies. This ensures that the overall lead time is reduced and new medicines become available to the patients sooner.

Similarly, for the insurance companies,

Aimedis makes the data available to reduce frauds, saving resources tracking the claims. This also reduces the time for reimbursement and it is a win-win for both the patient and the payer.

Aimedis is making it possible

We are living in interesting times when smart medicine is not a distant future but an actual reality. We are already using a lot of gadgets – fitness trackers, smart scales, sleep trackers, nutrition trackers, apps tracking our daily activities. Aimedis’ vision of integrating all of it and making sense of the data for the betterment of medicine is already becoming a reality.

Also, read AI in Healthcare: Bedside robots could soon be a reality in hospitals in the UK

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