HEALTHCARE WEARABLES

Wearables are continuing to gain popularity in the healthcare scope. Their benefits are numerous and designed to collect the data of users’ health and exercise, ensure that patients are accurately identified during processes such as medication administration and pathology sample collection, and ensure activities are accurately captured in electronic health records. They can also dispatch patients’ health information to a doctor or other healthcare professional in real time.

Wearables that are used in medical facilities fall into four main groups:

Wearable Devices

A wearable medical device can collect data on physiological and biochemical parameters, which is crucial in cases of patients with chronic illnesses or those who need to track a specific physical activity. This include devices that monitor blood pressure, EMG temperatures, blood glucose, blood pressure, and oxygen levels.

Implantable Devices

Implantable devices are often used by patients with chronic diseases or elderly patients by providing support for certain vital organs and simultaneously monitoring vital signs. Implantable systems can replace missing biological structures, sustain damaged biological systems or improve existing biological structures. This category includes the implantable infusion pump, cardiac pacemaker implants, and neurostimulators, as well as glucose monitoring devices or smart pills

Wristband Barcode

Patient identifier wristbands are ideal for hospitals, clinics, and even senior citizen homes. The hospital patient ID wristband with GS1 barcode, which can easily be scanned using a barcode scanner. The band provides key health care information such as the patient’s name, previous conditions, allergies, what type of medicine should be administered, and medicine dosage. Hospitals that have adopted GS1 Standards in wristbands can testify that they eliminate the possibility of making medical errors and help nurses and doctors accurately keep track of a patient’s condition.

How wearables can benefit the healthcare Industry

Wearables in medicine and healthcare simplify physiological data collection, monitor the intensity of human physical activities, and improve medical treatments, among other advantages. Healthcare technologies, especially wearable technology, can help medical practitioners follow and optimize remote monitoring care for the global population. Wearables in the healthcare industry, care providers can automate regular analyzing processes, and be able to pay more attention to the important things that require human intervention.

Wearables collect large amounts of data that help the physician determine the correlation between health conditions to be dealt with efficiently. Heart disease treatment has benefitted from the study and monitoring of fitness data by wearable trackers. This system allows physicians monitor the daily intake, calories, and daily activity of patients and can instantly store the data of patients on medical records and online databases. These devices can help health organizations collaborate remotely to simplify and improve healthcare processes.

Better Access to Patients’ Health

Wearables in healthcare can help doctors and surgeons improve their performance by collecting and analyzing health data remotely. Automatic identification systems (barcode or RFID) can have a very wide range of applications, including point-of-care scanning to match product data to patient data, verification of patient identity via a wristband, enabling the introduction of robotic dispensing systems, recording implant serial numbers in patient records and central registries, tracking and tracing of individual instruments through decontamination, stock control, and supplies management, tracking assets throughout a network of facilities.

 All these applications and systems enable the realization of associated health and economic benefits: reducing medication errors, preventing counterfeiting, saving costs, and increasing the Healthcare supply chain efficiency and transparency

Quicker Reaction of Healthcare Providers

The main impact of wearables in healthcare is the facilitation of processes. By using wearable technology, doctors can monitor the health of patients in real time. In some cases, wearable devices will send messages to other devices for further analysis or data storage. For example, if someone has an infection, they can quickly contact the healthcare provider by pressing a button, which will enable contact trackers and alert other patients and medical staff in the building. 

The health industry will benefit from this information since it can help reduce the cases of internal epidemics in healthcare institutions as well as reduce danger for patients. Additionally, if a patient is undergoing surgery, wearable devices will be useful to track the progress of their condition and send reminders for the administering of oxygen or other medications. These wearable devices can monitor the smallest deviations from the norm, and provide all the necessary information to take quick action, if necessary.

With the introduction of the wearable, doctors can monitor a patient’s heart rate, glucometer readings, calorie count, and other vital signs. This information can be of use to doctors to better manage patients’ health and safety. It can also aid doctors monitor the compliance of medications with treatment plans. With IoT solutions, healthcare is more efficient, user-friendly, and more advanced.

What is the State of the Healthcare Wearable Market Today?

Currently, the wearable technology market is expanding progressively. A lot of large and global companies directly create or improve wearables for the healthcare sector to improve patients’ and clinicians’ experiences. With a largely untapped market, players need to develop and market new products. The major players in the market are global companies like Apple Inc., Samsung, Fitbit, and even Philips. GS1 – an international not-for-profit association with member organizations in over 100 countries also plays a greater role in creating standards that improve wearables.GS1 Healthcare Standard is intended to be a foundational framework for all countries to use as a starting point for identifying specific business requirements to ensure a common approach and understanding of key principles by users around the world. The GS1 system of standards is the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world.

Besides this, several niche wearable markets are predicted to flourish shortly, including the adoption of GS1 standards on wearable technologies. These wearables have the potential to monitor a person’s health from anywhere, making them an excellent solution for people with chronic diseases.

The healthcare industry needs to be prepared for these changes and adapt quickly. It is necessary to invest in a secure and reliable system that can support the use of wearable technology in the future.

By Stethoscope