What You Should Know About Telehealth in the Era of COVID-19

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There have been dramatic changes to the medical landscape since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. One of the most significant changes that practitioners have experienced is an increase in flexibility in administering telehealth patient services.

What is Telehealth?

The World Health Organization (WHO) applies telehealth and telemedicine synonymously to describe the use of information and communications technology to overcome geographical barriers to patient care to improve health outcomes. This definition accounts for both clinical and non-clinical functions.

In telehealth appointments, you connect remotely with a provider to seek diagnosis, treatment, or monitoring of your health concerns. Telehealth is best applied in situations where you’re seeking follow-up monitoring on a pre-existing condition, or your symptoms aren’t emergent. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Telehealth

Like anything, using telehealth for patient care comes with pros and cons. 

Advantages of using telehealth include things like:

  • Increased health care accessibility.
  • Ability for greater collaboration among healthcare teams.
  • Decreased risk for exposure to unrelated illnesses like COVID-19.

Disadvantages consist of factors such as:

  • No physical exams performed.
  • Risks for delayed care.
  • Connectivity issues for patient or provider.

How to Schedule a Telehealth Appointment with Your Doctor

Telehealth appointments are generally booked by submitting a request through your provider’s patient portal or calling a medical office directly. Often, you’ll be required to complete some form of screening assessment related to your symptoms to determine whether a telehealth appointment will provide you with the necessary level of care needed for the condition in question. 

What Patients and Providers Say About Telehealth

Although it may seem like telehealth would make medicine feel less personal, a study by Massachusetts General Hospital found that 62% of patients surveyed reported that telehealth visits were as positive as in-person visits, and 21% said they were better than traditional appointments. Clinicians also reported higher efficiency, and more than half agreed that appointments were comparable to those conducted in-person.

Temporary measures were put in place to extend telehealth access to more people during the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, but many medical leaders are pushing for long-term changes. As the healthcare environment continues to adapt, the need for trained medical professionals — both clinical and non-clinical — will only increase. 

Sign up for one of our online courses, offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy, to find out how you can make money in healthcare from home, or contact us today to learn more about how our programs can prepare you to serve in this changing industry. Follow the Avidity Medical Design Blog to stay up to date on the latest trends in healthcare.

Star Trek Comes to Your Classroom: How to Use the Screenless Display to Train Your Students

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screenless displaysScreenless display technology has been used in science fiction for decades, but this advanced display system has also been worked into a usable format over the last few years.The development of Google Glass in 2012 brought this technology to the forefront. It also created a wide range of possibilities in terms of how this technology could be used.

So how can you use the screenless display to train your students? From the standpoint of healthcare, how can you use screenless displays to train medical personnel and safeguard patient information? A few benefits to the healthcare field have already been realized, but many more may still be on the horizon.

How Screenless Displays Work

There are three main categories of screenless displays that come in the form of a wearable device. The first is the light guide optical element (LOE) device. This looks like a pair of glasses that enables users to view a see-through display imported from their phones or other digital device. The image is projected onto the thin glass of the device.

The retinal scanning device (RSD) and the virtual retinal display (VRD) work in almost the same way as each other, but using different equipment. In these cases, an image is projected directly onto the retina. VRD has been developing for over two decades, but more compact and easily accessible forms with better quality display are now being developed.

There is another type of screenless display that does not require a wearable device to view the object—hologram technology. The way this works is through a precise setup of lasers, mirrors and film. The laser light is guided by mirrors, going through a beam splitter, and each branch of the split beam goes through a diverging lens, which widens the beams. One beam goes straight to a photographic emulsion, while the other hits the object then is guided to the emulsion. The disruption caused by the difference in the two beams creates a viewable hologram.

How to Use Screenless Displays for Healthcare Training

All forms of screenless displays can be used for healthcare training. Each one can provide a large display of germs, cells, anatomy, or anything else that’s not easily seen with the naked eye. The case of holograms is especially helpful over screen displays because students and instructors can view a 3D image together and address any questions by interacting with the display.

How Screenless Display Improve Security

Wearable screenless devices may be best for protecting patients’ privacy. Healthcare information needs to be safeguarded and there are HIPPA rules that employees should follow, but mistakes do happen. Wearable screenless displays would cut down on the risk because the information would only be seen by the person wearing the device. No one could look over their should at their screen, they wouldn’t have to remember to lock their computer while stepping away. Patient information would only be available to the people meant to see it.

To learn more about advances in healthcare training or how Avidity Medical Design is striving to innovate healthcare education platforms, feel free to contact us.

The Latest Trends in Cancer Treatment: Targeted Cancer Drugs

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the latest trends in cancer treatment 2014

One of the latest trends in cancer treatment for 2014 is the use of targeted drugs that attack the genetic “on switch” for cancer. According to recent story on CBS News, one of these new approaches to fighting cancer is a type of targeted cancer therapy that could one day eliminate conventional chemotherapy as we know it.

Chemotherapy, as it is currently practiced, involves delivering powerful cancer-fighting drugs intravenously to the site of a tumor. While this type of treatment can reduce or even eliminate a tumor, it also wreaks havoc on surrounding healthy tissue. This makes cancer patients ill and weak. Conventional chemotherapy is like World War II era carpet bombing: a powerful attack but with a lot of collateral damage remaining.

medications on white surface

Targeted drugs are more like smart bombs. A recent research project describes a new treatment that uses the tumors own genetic sequence to attack it. Researchers sequenced 10 genes in lung cancer patients and in two thirds of them found the “on switch” that causes cancers to manifest and grow. The new drug, an oral medication that is selected according to the results of the genetic sequencing of the tumors, turns that switch to “off,” keeping the cancer under control for a significant period of time.

Targeted drugs that attack the genetic “on switch” for cancer do not currently represent a cure for cancer. What they may do, however, is to turn cancer into a chronic disease, rather than a fatal disease. Although there may still be some adverse health effects, these drugs may keep the cancer from metastasizing, or spreading to other areas of the body, thereby allowing patients to live longer and healthier lives. Targeted drugs may hopefully work for many different types of cancer, and may buy patients enough time to allow real cures to come through the pipeline.

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

For more healthcare news, follow the Avidity Medical Design Blog. If you are interested in taking an online healthcare course, visit Avidity Medical Design Academy. If you like scented candles and soaps, visit Avidity Medical Scentations to purchase scented candles and soaps with a healthcare inspiration.

The Future of Electronic Medical Records: Sharing as Well as Storing

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The Future of Electronic Medical RecordsWhat is the Future of Electronic Medical Records? Most healthcare providers are slowly but surely transitioning from the traditional hard copy paper record to the electronic medical record that is more easily entered, stored, and accessed. Tablets have replaced notepads for doctors dictating the patient’s medical history, review of systems, physical examination, and factors in medical decisionmaking. This has freed the healthcare provider from spending additional time entering data, and reduced the amount of time taken away from patient care. Tablets can also take visual images on the spot as needed.

The future, according to KERA, a north Texas public radio station, is tying all these records into a network that primary care physicians, specialists, and other healthcare providers can share. For example, it is still very common for patients to have to fill out the same forms over and over again when seeing other doctors, including specialists to whom he or she has been referred by the primary care physician. One reason is that various healthcare providers have different medical record software programs that do not necessarily communicate with one another over a network.

In the future, different specialists will be able to access medical information on a patient instantaneously, including notes from the primary care physician, and add data if necessary.  This would streamline the recordkeeping process that has been the bane of healthcare providers and free them up to spend more time taking care of patients.  As a bonus, the system could be geared to alert the primary care physician instantly when a patient has been admitted to the emergency room, or a record has been updated by another physician.

In the present, electronic medical records store patient information. In the future, healthcare professionals will find new ways to access and share patient information that goes beyond storing it in the patient record.

To learn more about how to read your own medical record, enroll in the course entitled, “How to Read Your Own Medical Record (Learn What is in YOUR Medical Files!)” offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy.

Watch two sample lectures below:

Lecture 15 from “How to Read Your Own Medical Records (Learn What is in YOUR Medical Files!)”
Lecture 16 from “How to Read Your Own Medical Records (Learn What is in YOUR Medical Files!)”

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