Healthcare is one of the most significant of all sectors in any country. Healthcare is an important public and social setup, as well as a huge commercial market. Health is what we all put at the top priority in our lives- for, without well-being, our ability to perform physical and mental tasks is limited. Be it developed countries or ones in the process of developing their infrastructure, the healthcare sector has always had top priority.
In the USA alone, the growth rate in the healthcare market is expected to reach 4.3%. This is comparable with the EU market, which has an expected 4%, but nearly has what is going to be in the growing economies: 7.5%
Why The Growth?
Healthcare’s increase in spending are down to a few, but significantly interdependent factors: ageing population, higher life expectancy and rising costs. As the quality of life (due to cheaper or easily available facilities, access to medication and overall increase in awareness) has increased, this has resulted in fewer deaths in early and middle stages of life. Consequently, the population age breakdown has shifted its tilt towards the older spectrum. The higher life expectancy means that more and more people now make up the older segment of the population and thus, the requirement of medical and health facilities for senior people has increased.
Economics is one factor that cannot be ruled out of any country’s working. Inflation and rising costs are practical factors of economics and that translates to rising costs of healthcare. A Deloitte estimate of the global healthcare cost is estimated to reach USD 8.7 trillion dollars in the next two years.
Issues In The Global Healthcare System
Even with such a financially large sector, healthcare is not without its own set of problems. Most of the issues exist due to bureaucracy and its conflict with understanding the need, accuracy and speed of a medical facility to be provided to people with illness:
- Inefficient Operations: Healthcare systems in many countries operate as on huge unit, with the centralization of services and support in mind. The leads to poor management and waste of resources. Doctors spend more time in filing paperwork than actually performing their duties. This means delays in medical related help to patients, who are left often languishing in queues.
- Profitability: Although medical facilities are meant for the upkeep of health, the sector has become like any other industry, feared towards generating revenue and profits for investors. This means that institutions and allied facilities such as insurance companies want to spend as little as possible to gain the maximum financial benefit.
- Technological Adaption: Expensive machinery and other technology can sometimes not justify the investment, or may be too difficult to obtain, depriving patients of the opportunity of being well.
- Defragmented Record: Each institution or insurance company contain their own set of medical records of their clients and patients. If the patient goes to another facility, the doctors do not have access to the records to diagnose correctly. Even if records are made available, the time required for receiving and study the medical history can be crucial in case a patient is critical.
Doctor Smart: Blockchaining Healthcare
Describing itself as a Future Smart Health Technology, the blockchain company has extensively studied the issues faced by patients in the modern healthcare system. The decentralized platform is deploying blockchain technology to bring efficiencies and eliminate bureaucracy and other cost and delay causing elements to give patients the best the healthcare has to offer:
- Efficient Management: Bringing efficiencies in the healthcare system and giving medical professionals more time to look after patients than filling records, the platform allows for a good management system that is focused towards the patients.
- Smart Contracts: insurances can be bought on the platform, which will have the ability to automatically execute in case of an incident, allowing patients the financial coverage required for medical help and an automatic payout.
- Decision Making: With machine learning and thousands of doctors on the platform, the healthcare provider will be able to give patients an accurate diagnostic and help doctors to connect and consult in real time about issues faced by patients.
- Decentralized MR: With patients record in a single format and distributed to all nodes, the MRs can be pulled up by any medical professional and instantly take into account the patient history while diagnosing the current issue
- Remote Medical Access: With real-time video communication, patients living in areas where medical facilities are not available or there is an issue of access, doctors can interact with the patients, giving advice and dispensing their professional opinion.
- Cheaper Services: By eliminating slow and cumbersome intermediaries that add nothing to the system, but slow it down at a cost to the patient, Doctor Smart can save thousands of dollars in money to the users of the platform.
The Doctor Smart team is filled with experts and professionals devoted to building a leading digital healthcare and wellness service that will use blockchain technology, medicine, health and cutting edge tech to bring the best gynecological and healthcare advice to women and children.
The platform is perfectly geared towards giving the best the healthcare systems have to offer to patients.
Find out more on the Doctor smart website: https://doctorsmart.io/