Man driving with a mobile phone beside him showing a digital map - using Uber Health application for patient transportation.

Welcome to Uber Health: How Uber is Being Used in Healthcare Transportation

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Man driving with a mobile phone beside him showing a digital map - using Uber Health application for patient transportation.

Access to transportation is a prerequisite for access to universal healthcare. A recent study in the United States shows that approximately 3.6 million Americans miss or delay attending their medical appointments. Most of the patients who miss out on their consultations are from the lower cadre of society. Some, like the elderly, are vulnerable and can barely afford the taxi system, which is often expensive. In 2018, Uber launched a program known as Uber Health in partnership with other hospitals and healthcare systems like Maryland-based MedStar Health.

Since then, several hospitals and health systems have adopted this program to help transport their patients. Lyft has also launched a similar program to help transport patients.

person driving car

How Does Uber Health Work?

This program offers a wide range of services for you as a patient or a healthcare provider. However, it specializes in transporting patients from their homes to the healthcare facilities for medical appointments, including medical evacuation.

So how does this work? If you are a patient and have an appointment with your doctor, Uber Health is instrumental. You don’t have to worry if you do not have a smartphone since your healthcare provider will be responsible for booking the ride. And if you don’t have a mobile phone, there is an option for landline rides. Uber will send your ride information via an automatic message on your landline. You will not be booked for transportation as a patient, but, rather, your medical provider will pay for the ride. In some instances, insurance defrays the bill.

person holding smartphone

How to Book Rides for Patients

As a healthcare provider, it’s important to note that you can book rides for your patients a few hours until the appointment or days in advance. There are two types of rides that you can make for your patients: scheduled rides and designated pickups. In the case of planned rides, they are flexible, and you can set them up immediately or for up to 30 days, allowing patients to confirm when they are ready. On the other hand, facilities with big campuses are advised to use designated pickup locations set within the platform. After booking, both your patient and the driver will receive a detailed brief sent to them regarding the pickup location.

Why it is Important to Understand Uber Health

Understanding how to use Uber Health is essential to both patients and the healthcare providers in the following ways:

  1. Uber Health is accessible to patients who do not have a smartphone. Your healthcare provider is responsible for booking your ride to and from the hospital, and a text message bearing the details of the ride is sent to your phone.
  2. Uber Health helps healthcare organizations keep track of spending. This is because the billing statements are readily available and easy to interpret. This reduces the likelihood of losing money, even thousands of dollars.

Final Thoughts

The Uber Health program will revolutionize the transportation of patients unprecedentedly, leading to a reduction in the cases of missed appointments that is costing healthcare providers billions of dollars annually.

For more healthcare information, check out Avidity Medical Design Blog or enroll for a course at Avidity Medical Design Academy. To purchase scented soaps and candles, visit Avidity Medical Scentations.

Welcome to Star Trek: 10 New Medical Devices of the Future

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Ever watch the newest Sci-Fi episodes (or the older ones) and wonder why your own medical treatment couldn’t be that easy? Here are a few newer medical devices that will bring the futuristic medical treatments straight to your door.

1. The Bionic Eye

Recently in development, but not perfect, is the 3D printing of light receptors onto a glass eye. The silver, which they use as ink, stays where it is put on the rounded glass and produces electric feedback. It is moving on to the next stage of development and designed to increase eye comfort for patients.

2. 3D Print Sockets for Artificial Limbs

girl with curly blonde hair wearing red hoodie against red background holding prosthetic hands and arms together

In the United States, it is not difficult to have a socket fitted to an amputated limb by a person trained in prosthesis in any major city. With the help of cell phone scanning and a 3D printer, patients who live in other countries are receiving low-cost sockets for their amputated limbs. 

3. Contact Lenses For Blood Glucose

smart contact lenses

As the saying goes, “Eyes are the windows to the soul.” They can tell your doctor a thing or two if you are a diabetic. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, these new “smart” contact lenses can detect and transmit your blood glucose level using your own tears.

4. Virtual Dissection Tables

If you are a student who is trying to learn about the human anatomy, watching a cadaver being dissected might be hard to handle. A new device, called a virtual dissection table, might make it easier. The virtual dissection table allows instructors to virtually dissect a human body, identify diseases, and teach surgical procedures without using a cadaver. 

5. Robotic Assistants

From training long-term residents to helping with physical therapy sessions, new medical devices in the form of robotic assistance have been used to move and assist patients with standing or transferring to wheelchairs. A robot is even being developed to draw blood or insert IVs with ultrasound enhanced vein targeting. 

6. Tattoos

Much like the continuous blood glucose sensors, these tattoos are placed on the body to transmit vital signs to medical devices for continuous monitoring. Biometric tattoos can transmit medical information discreetly, allowing for easier communication with physicians. 

7. Sensors in Teeth

You’re on a strict diet. You lie to your physician about how much you ate. With teeth sensors, those days are gone. These teeth sensors can be embedded in your teeth to determine what, how much, and when you ate. These sensors can even track when and how often you smoke. Your actions and intake are recorded and sent to a smart device, allowing your doctor to see real-time data. 

8. Printed Skin

photo of woman with dark skin wearing gold eyeshadow and lipstick looking down while against black background

If you are a burn victim, skin grafts have been made from the cells of burn victims using 3D printing, to give burn victims a better chance to recover without scars and skin graft rejections. The printed skin procedure also reduces the patient’s recovery time and the risk of infections. Printed skin grafts can be as small or as large as needed, without the skin being taken from other areas of the body.  

9. In Silico Clinical Trials

The medical community no longer recruits patients with certain diseases to try different medical treatments. Clinical trials are now taking place on silicon chips. These silicon chips are made to react like an organ, a drug, or a treatment, thereby reducing the need for human trials. 

10. The Medical ‘Tricorder’

young medical professional using clear tablet to study x-ray and other medical data

Still more futuristic than the present, the tricorder from the popular show Star Trek is in development. A contest is in place to see who can pull together the best functioning device that could scan a being and receive medical-grade information- more than just vital signs. 

The future is closer than we imagine, with only developers’ imaginations holding back their ingenuity. Many new medical devices are in development that will aid in our visits with physicians, treatments, and overall learning.  To keep up to date with medical advancements, follow the Avidity Medical Design Blog.

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3 Things Every Medical Professional Should Know About Cybersecurity

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The healthcare industry faces unique and growing threats to cybersecurity, due to the amount of personal data stored on servers, and the relatively low level of cybersecurity in place for smaller healthcare facilities. The typical medical facility stores electronic health records (EHRs), employment data for thousands of individuals, and personal identity details for many healthcare employees and providers. Although larger healthcare facilities have taken additional steps to implement a multilayered security process to protect healthcare data at all levels of the organization, the abundance of information that needs to be protected, combined with less awareness of security risk in individual practices and smaller medical facilities, makes some healthcare facilities a prime target for cybercrime. If you work for a doctor’s office or a small to mid-size medical facility, or if you are thinking about pursing a career in healthcare, review the following three risks to understand how you can help your facility take steps to reduce security risk before it is too late.

The three risks that you should be aware of include:

  1. The risk of attack by ransomware.
  2. The risk of attack to medical devices.
  3. The risk of password violations and phishing attempts.

The Risk of Attack By Ransomware

Since any business can be crippled by a ransomware attack, a cyberattack that locks a medical facility out of its own records is putting patients’ lives at risk. One Ohio hospital found this out the hard way; Ohio Valley Medical Center had to turn emergency room patients away after a ransomware attack locked them out of their own systems. Because ransomware is a malicious software program that blocks users from accessing the data stored on their own computer until a “ransom,” or money is paid to unlock their computer and regain access to their own data, in the case of the Ohio Valley Medical Center security breach, ambulances were diverted and computer systems were taken offline to address the attack. This meant that if you were a patient, you would not have been able to get the care that you needed while the facility struggled to resolve the ransomware issue. Sadly, this is not an unusual occurrence, and criminals have figured out that disrupting care is the fastest way to a quick payday when it comes to ransomware. 

The Risk of Attack to Medical Devices

Many of the devices used in a standard hospital setting are equipped with IoT based technology. This type of technology allows healthcare providers to collect data easily and to monitor patients long distance. Since these devices are directly accessing the healthcare facility’s network, they increase the risk of a cyberattack. While the use of IV stands, insulin pumps and other devices save lives, medical professionals should be aware that they are putting themselves and their patients at greater risk when using these devices. Placing these devices on a dedicated, separate network can drastically reduce the risk of a security breach. Keeping an accurate inventory of medical devices and where they are located in your facility can also help reduce the risk of attacks to your medical devices.

The Risk of Password Violations and Phishing Attempts

Providers and staff members can inadvertently increase a facility’s risk of cyberattack. From poor password choices, including options like “PASSWORD” and “QWERTY”, to a lack of awareness about phishing, employees may accidentally increase the risk of cyberattack. Scheduling online training sessions that incorporate best practices for password use, and how to recognize phishing and ransomware attempts, can drastically reduce the likelihood of responding to these cyberattacks. The IT department can also take additional steps to help protect your facility and ensure that no one without the right to access sensitive patient or employee data can get into your computer network. 

Being aware of these three risks allows you to take steps to protect your facility, contact your manager and/or help desk if something looks suspicious in terms of information access, and safeguard the data of patients as well as managers and other employees in your healthcare facility.

For more informative articles on healthcare, visit the Avidity Medical Design Blog.

To take an online course in healthcare, visit Avidity Medical Design Academy. 

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4 Things You Should Know About Virtual Medicine in 2019 (and beyond!)”

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The rise of the digital age continues to change the way the healthcare industry does business in 2019. Whether you’re looking to start a new career in the healthcare industry or you are looking to gain valuable knowledge and insight to further your career, some smart learning can only help. Here are a few things you should know about virtual medicine.

1. Social Media Is Key.

With the rise of social media, most major healthcare companies – and most companies across all business sectors – now know the importance of social media. Whether you are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube, for example, social media helps you to stay up to date with industry trends, if you are a healthcare professional, or learn about the way surgeries are performed, learn how to connect with other healthcare professionals, or learn how to find a job if you are new to the healthcare field, for example.

2. Apps for Real-Time Online Patient Interaction.

These days, you’ll have to look pretty hard to find a business without – at least – a website and possibly an app. As the digital world evolves, it’s becoming the norm that patients are able to do everything from set appointments to viewing their medical charts all from the comfort of their home. As a medical professional in almost any position, you’ll want to be comfortable working with computers in a digital setting.

3. Telecommuting for Work.

As the cost of technology continues to go down and the percentage of people with access to the Internet goes up, telecommuting for all professions – including healthcare – will continue to rise. For you, it’s great, because you don’t have to dress up and leave home to get paid. For your employer, it’s great, because they don’t need to pay overhead. Avidity Medical Design Academy offers a course entitled, “How to Make Money in Healthcare Working From Home (Full Time!) ,” where  you can learn about careers such as medical coding, medical transcription, medical claims processing, medical writing, healthcare teaching, and healthcare customer service, for example, that allow you to work from home.

4. Online Security and the Future of Healthcare.

Last but not least, as a healthcare professional, you’ll want to be aware of online security and privacy concerns, especially if you’re telecommuting full- or part-time. Whatever your role, you will likely be exposed to private medical history covered by federal laws such as HIPAA. Review our article entitled, “Everything You Need to Know About HIPAA” to learn more about what HIPAA is and what it means in terms of your work as a healthcare professional.

With the rise of virtual medicine, the healthcare industry will continue to evolve, and you’ll want to keep up with the current trends. Visit the Avidity Medical Design Blog for more information on many different topics pertaining to the healthcare industry.

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Ebola 101: What Challenges Do Physicians Face Treating This Disease?

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Ebola has been a biological bogeyman for decades, but it’s only recently that the disease has made its way into the United States. With fewer than 10 cases and only a single fatality it could be argued that the response to the disease was proper. However, could that fatality have been avoided? And what problems are physicians facing trying to treat this disease in what is supposedly one of the best health care systems in the world?

Ebola 101: What Challenges Do Physicians Face?

Ebola is a deadly condition whose symptoms bear a resemblance to influenza (fever, coughing, weakness, vomiting, etc.) until bruising and bleeding starts. Fortunately Ebola is transmitted by close, personal contact (including contact with a patient’s bodily fluids) which means that it’s much more difficult to spread than an airborne virus. When examined from the outside Ebola should be a fairly simple disease to contain and control, and once it’s contained the treatment should be routine.

Should be is the key phrase here.

Physician reviewing petri dish for signs of Ebola. From the Avidity Medical Design BlogThe primary challenge that physicians face treating Ebola is actually containing it. The disease first has to be identified, and patient placed in isolation, and then physicians need to ascertain that no one else caught the disease from the patient. Given the fear associated with Ebola people may be unlikely to come forward if they were exposed, and this can lead to problems with the disease’s spread.

Another issue that physicians often face is the lack of training and proper protocol regarding Ebola. Whether it’s due to a lack of proper equipment (full body suits that will protect the doctor from a patient’s fluids are a primary concern, and they’re also something of a rarity), or simply not having a plan that’s been communicated to everyone on staff there are often breaches that result in the disease spreading to others when it shouldn’t. Part of the issue is funding, and part of it is experience since those who aren’t familiar with the CDC’s protocols for personal protection may find they make mistakes when they try to follow the guidelines.

male healthcare worker hunched over his desk working

 

Overcoming These Challenges

These challenges are not going to vanish overnight, which is why physicians must take necessary steps to overcome them. Making sure proper equipment is in place is a necessity, and making sure that staff can use that equipment through classes and drilling is also a necessity.

Another necessity is making sure that the protocols put in place are easy to follow, and that they work. That’s where Avidity Medical Design Consultants, LLC comes into the picture. With years of experience in the healthcare industry, and a thorough knowledge of anatomy and physiology, Avidity Medical Design Consultants, LLC can develop curriculum to train your staff on guidelines and strategies for treating patients with the Ebola virus. This comprehensive training is ideal for physicians, as well as nurses and other healthcare practitioners, who must address the demands of treating patients with the Ebola virus.

For more information on the healthcare, follow the Avidity Medical Design Blog. To learn more about our online courses, visit Avidity Medical Design Academy. To purchase scented candles and soaps inspired by healthcare, visit Avidity Medical SCENTations.

Brain-Computer Interfaces: What They Mean for the Future Students of Healthcare Education

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Do you remember the old sci-fi movies and TV shows that we grew up with? Do you remember how you felt when you saw Luke Skywalker, William Shatner and Arnold Schwarzenegger using out of this world technology that you thought was the creation of movie magic. What if I told you that the future is already here?

Technology has grown and matured over the last 25 years to a point where man and machine are slowly becoming one. A new and exciting area of tech that is receiving a lot of buzz right now is brain-computer interface technology.

brain computer interfaces

What is Brain-Computer Technology?

A brain-computer interface is a direct communication pathway between the brain and an electrical device. The neurons of the brain are measured with electrodes, which then sends an electronic signal to a device such as a prosthetic leg or arm to simulate human movements.

There are currently two approaches that are yielding results in field studies. The non-invasive brain-computer interface measure activity from large groups of neurons with electrodes placed on the surface of the scalp (EEG). Invasive brain-computer interface measure activity from single neurons with miniature wires placed inside the brain.

Who Is Using Brain-Computer Interface Today?

The United States military has always been on the cutting edge of developing and using new emerging technology in all branches of the services.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco, contracts worth $56 million to create electrical brain implants capable of treating seven psychiatric conditions, including addiction, depression, and borderline personality disorder.

The military is trying to overcome an epidemic of mental illness among veterans, including suicide rates three or four times that of the general public due to long combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is why the military is turning to neurological devices.

The Brain Chip

Doctors in Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and researchers from Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio have helped a quadriplegic man move his hand for the first time with a brain chip.

Ian Burkhart, the man who was injured in a driving accident was the first patient to use Neurobridge. The Neuobridge system is made of a computer chip implanted in the brain, a brain-computer interface and a sleeve able to send electric signals to the forearm and hand of the patient.

This groundbreaking technology proves the brain-computer interface is more than just a fantasy it is a reality.

person holding string lights photo

What Does This Mean For The Future Of Healthcare Education?

What this means for the future of healthcare education is that learning is going to have to be more cross categorical than ever before.

It won’t be enough for a student to know about basic brain functions and muscle interaction. They will need to understand mechanics, engineering, and software development just to name a few categories.

The healthcare system and healthcare technology are rapidly evolving. Healthcare education must evolve with it to meet the demands of today. For curriculum development and other instructional design services, visit Avidity Medical Design Consultants, LLC for more information.