Consumerism is a defining characteristic of our modern world. In its basic definition, it is about encouraging people to acquire goods and services on a constant basis, and you may think that this sounds at least troubling. While it may be, there is a more recent term – healthcare consumerism. Being a very different thing, consumerism in healthcare can be defined as the proactive behavior of people regarding the consumption of healthcare services for the sake of making better decisions about their health.

Sounds very confusing, but you can easily find a consumerism essay to get a better understanding of consumerism topics. Anyway, healthcare consumerism is quite an interesting phenomenon, and I decided to explore its prospects, especially regarding the application of IT in healthcare and its use in health consumerism.

The current state of affairs

Healthcare is a painful topic for some countries, especially the United States. There are things such as skyrocketing healthcare costs and practitioners who are not able to properly help patients because of some bureaucratic or other barriers; we all know about that. But there are lots of positive things too! For example, there’s way more information about the effectiveness of various types of treatment for different conditions, and patients have almost unlimited access to that information.

I was also reading consumerism essay about how healthcare institutions are able to enhance the quality of services through information technologies. As it appears, the active application of IT in the industry created opportunities for the optimization of the working process through things such as unified and automated document flow, availability of clients’ information on demand, and similar things. That is quite impressive, but there are more things to be fascinated about. Patients are able to find their clinicians’ ratings and leave their own reviews.

Not too good, not too bad

Still, the situation could have been better. After all, all the advances in technologies still leave us far behind the idea of the really effective healthcare industry. There are also such things as big pharmacy and corruption. Any example of a https://studymoose.com/consumerism will show these factors are hampering the acquisition of maximum efficiency for the clients. That’s why it is so important to include the suggestions and ideas of the actual consumers.

IT can provide this crucial information through a simple thing – a feedback system. Such a solution is business 101, and gathering feedback from clients can give additional insights about what could be improved. IT makes this a trivial thing – create some feedback app, gather all the information, compile it into chunks, and analyze.

IT is the future potential of healthcare

Let’s begin it simple – healthcare consumerism is about convenience, knowledge, and effectiveness. So, there are already different applications that help out people with things such as prescriptions, reminders to take pills, and so on and so forth. Do you see the potential? Information technologies can just make these small tasks trivial.

The next level is big data – this is the true power of utilizing IT in any sort of activity. Currently, large companies are able to use big data gathered through IT solutions to predict consumer’s behavior, make product and service suggestions, and even more! Just imagine applying it to the healthcare industry. The use of big data could open new horizons for preventive medicine and even policymaking.

It is simple – gathered data provides officials with knowledge of the problematic areas among the population and address them appropriately through the allocation of all sorts of resources. This sort of solution would clearly bring us closer to the literal meaning of healthcare consumerism. The healthcare industry will be able to sharpen its preventive measures, thus lowering general costs.

Reduction in costs means one thing – improved general medicine. Lowered costs lead to considerable savings that can be used to explore ways to enhance conditions in medical institutions, invest in research and development, and so on and so forth. As it is possible to clearly see, the use of IT in healthcare consumerism is probably the best solution to the pressing problems that are plaguing industry worldwide.

Conclusion

Healthcare consumerism is the future of the industry, and it is required to address this situation. People are living longer than ever throughout the history of humanity, and this means more consumers for the healthcare industry in general. That’s why the inclusion of IT is important to reduce the financial pressure, improve the efficiency of services, and create grounds for effective preventive measures.

Small gadgets and apps can already prove to be effective for some categories of clients, but the real potential lies within IT big data. Information is everything, and large corporations are able to use it. Why not apply it to healthcare? There are no reasons why it is a bad idea. So, being able to use statistical data can make movements on every level of industry and even lead politics to some actually useful decisions regarding financing and allocating resources.