>> Interoperability Helping the Future of Elderly Care
When the elderly visit healthcare professionals, they would never have assumed a computer could host all their medical history instead of a bulky file full of documents. Many elderly patients are often accompanied by family members or caretakers to their appointments and have little involvement in their medical procedures.
The future of elderly care rests on interoperability to help patient data sharing and enhance the healthcare experience. It can help save time running diagnostics while having a complete medical record easy to access and interpret.
Issues Healthcare Professionals Face With Elderly Care
There are many issues that healthcare professionals face when taking care of the elderly that impacts the quality of the healthcare services provided. Some of these issues are:
It is hard for professionals to determine where a patient has been treated before and what treatment they went through.
They cannot readily get their hands on information from the professionals who treated them and their insight on the matter.
The bulk of disorganized data that patients often bring is overwhelming and hard to sort out and interpret.
Understanding and overcoming any administration or financial barriers to providing a service or health plan.
Interoperability not only addresses these issues but also provides practical solutions for them. Through it, the future of elderly healthcare is in much better hands.
Why Does Elderly Care need Healthcare Interoperability?
One of the significant aspects of healthcare that involves the most number of individuals is elderly healthcare.
That’s because patients, their families, caretakers, and doctors are all in the loop. Similarly, there are many complications at an old age that these patients face. Statistics show that over 85% of elderly people have a chronic condition, and 60% have more than one. These multiple chronic conditions, alongside weaker immune systems and higher chances of physical injury, complicate healthcare for the elderly.
That also suggests that they see multiple healthcare professionals, take different medications, and have many care pathways. Interoperability comes in when all of these medical inputs provide data to be compiled and stored. Time is often short when the elderly face life-threatening situations, and healthcare professionals can make faster and better decisions if they have their patients' data easily accessible.
How Will Interoperability in Elderly Care Work In The Future
The future of elderly healthcare under interoperability will have the following features:
A completely accessible medical history of the patient, with notes and any scans, X-rays, and pictures included.
Keeping the payer for the medical services in the loop for what professionals to choose, their costs, and updates on the treatment.
Creating a care path of specific professionals to deal with individual conditions the patient has so they do not have to change doctors often.
Better monitoring of the patient’s heath with synced at-home medical devices and input from caretakers.
A detailed list of medications that the patient is on is cross-checked with each professional to ensure they are compatible.
The Takeaway
Although the future of elderly healthcare looks promising under interoperability standards, many barriers need to be overcome. When it comes to elderly care, healthcare providers are the most reluctant to share patient data.
Healthcare systems’ aversion to data sharing needs to be addressed so all patient data is accessible. Similarly, essential provisions must be made to avoid patient privacy concerns like data leaking and healthcare abuse by family members who avoid cooperating with the professionals. There is great promise for what interoperability will do for elderly healthcare in the years to come.
DevScripts Solutions is an IT Consultant Firm Specializing in Interoperability within the Healthcare Arena.
We are a small team solving big interoperability challenges on a daily basis. With our vast knowledge of interoperability we can integrate ourselves as part of your organization just like we are part of your full-time team. We develop a variety of custom interfaces for healthcare organizations such as Healthcare Vendors, HIEs, Health Systems, Hospitals, Medical Practices, Payors and ACOs using Mirth Connect.
We work with businesses in California, Georgia, New York, Florida, Texas and throughout the wider United States.
For more information on our services or to arrange a consultation call please contact us today.
T: 678-861-4682 E: info@devscriptssolutions.com
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