“Stop the spread”

“Flatten the curve”

“Maintain social distancing”

The slogans that are buzzing all around the world, but are we all really understanding the severeness of the situation and following all the rules? Well, the answer to this might come to your mind to be “Yes”, but the fact is, we still are lacking in some places to take the right steps, especially when it comes to taking care of our elderly people.

No wonder why the report states 41% of Ontario’s COVID-19 deaths linked to long-term care facilities and the significant proportion of death rates in Canada are registered from the LTC homes. The numbers stated here have a reason that leads many senior citizens and the health care workers taking care of these residents towards the vicious pit of coronavirus.

Digging down into this area, it is found that these LTC home residents are still sharing the rooms and are living together, in spite of the fact that they are all ill and have the maximum chances of getting infected with the novel virus spread worldwide. Also in the effort of taking care of these old hands, there are many LTC workers found COVID-19 positive, thus increasing the death ratio in these LTC homes.

Well, the elderly people are the least immune to the harmful impact of the virus, taking better care of them and keeping them at a distance from each other is the need of the time. But does these mean that they will remain deprived of the quality healthcare facility that they deserve in such critical time?

Absolutely NO, this calls for a virtual solution that could help these old hands get the right medication sitting in their rooms and also save the healthcare workers from getting in direct contact with these patients by making it possible to treat them remotely through the mobile phones.

Yes, this is possible! Let’s find out how?

How can virtual care options come to their rescue?

In the times when maintaining distance is the basic requirement that could help the world mitigate the effect of coronavirus, having a technologically advanced solution that can help people to get themselves diagnosed and get the basic treatment without stepping out of their houses can bring great relief, especially for the elderly people living alone.

Having a healthcare solution at the fingertips is thus possible with the advancement in technology like Artificial intelligence and natural language processing. The gadgets and applications developed using these technologies have made it possible for people to tell their problems to the mobile apps and the specifically designed applications will help them connect to the doctors to get the virtual treatment.

Let’s discuss some ways these applications and software are making access to the healthcare facilities easier.

●   Telemedicine apps

It refers to the virtual treatment that a patient could get by signing in the application and describing their problems through the chatbots to enter the symptoms into the application. The automated virtual healthcare chatbots are connected with a database that stores information on all the basic symptoms related to disease along with some precautionary advice that can help the patient to feel better from his current condition.

There are many telemedicine apps like Babylon and Maple available in the market that have the features which allow the patient to connect with the doctors virtually through the voice chats and video calls. The doctors or specialists from all over the world that are registered with these apps, anyone of them based on the area the patient is in, can then diagnose the patient through video call and prescribe the needed medicines to be taken from the pharmacist. Some of the apps also ask the patient to select the nearest pharmacist to get the medicines collected from there directly.

These apps can be of great use for the seniors living away from their family or are staying alone in the areas where they need to travel a great distance to reach the doctors for basic checkups.

●   Virtual healthcare solution

Taking the telemedicine app concept to the next level, virtual healthcare solutions are a complete package for the healthcare fraternity. It is a complete solution that enables each person connected in the healthcare industry, whether DOC, physicians, nurses, patients or even pharmacists to keep doing their work remotely and work in sync.

For places like long-term care homes, where there are a number of elderly people living and are under the observation of the healthcare team, the virtual healthcare solution like Writi can be the only alternative to make sure everyone in the place, including the healthcare team, is safe especially in the time when we are all suggested to maintain social distance.

The solutions like this are designed in a way that helps DOC to monitor the task for the team, while the nurses based on the resident’s medical information stored in the respective user account can schedule the virtual meet with the physicians, where these physicians will diagnose the patient through the Tele-visit and can note the medicines to e-fax the prescriptions directly to the pharmacist to deliver them.

This whole cycle is processed and managed through the applications designed with cutting edge technology like AI to give the users the best results and take the healthcare system to the next level.

COVID -19 is an opportunity for virtual healthcare to make a difference in the world – Entrepreneurs it’s time to make some business!

In order to boost the current healthcare industry and keep in mind the situation of untouchability that the world is facing, having an excellent virtual healthcare solution is the biggest scope for all the people working in the niche. These applications and solutions were submerged for a long time as it’s hard to beat the traditional healthcare ecosystem.

But if we look at the current scenario that we are in now, these technology gadgets are the ones that can act as frontline care for the one in need. These solutions can help to be a great benefit for the people living in the rural area, who need to travel a great distance to get themselves treated. Moreover, the biggest benefit of it is that people don’t need to get themselves in physical contact or presence and they get the same healthcare facility virtually which is what we need today in COVID-19 time.

Thinking about this solution from the business perspective, if you are a professional health specialist, a psychiatrist, a dietitian or a businessman looking for the opportunity in the healthcare industry, investing your time and money in developing such apps for the humanity is worth as the market of virtual healthcare will be booming shortly as people now are more addicted to getting things online, whether it’s their grocery or health checkups. Thus increasing the use of such apps rapidly.

Summing Up

Virtual healthcare is the need of now and more of tomorrow, it is the upliftment that the healthcare industry was in need of. The increasing number of death rates in long term care homes are the signs of the urgency to adopt virtual healthcare solutions. This solution would indeed act as a reason for saving many lives in the LTC by filling the gap of demand (for treatment/diagnosis) and supply (experts/doctors) by treating patients virtually through the mobile apps.

The only thing to understand is that there is much more room for improvement in the kind of service we provide, all we need to do is take the right step at the right time by adopting and developing them.