Thursday, 8 March 2007
Health Improvements with New Technological Innovations
The Disease Management Strategies (DM) described by this week’s case study highlight interesting components of both the needs of our society and the ability we have with new technologies to aid in producing more productive and effective care. Many of the programs described have found cost-effective ways to manage patient health and address the needs of our aging population. The added management has helped patients control chronic diseases and as a result has saved a substantial amount of money that would have been spent to treat the patients individually. The patient centric, individualized care has brought a much needed focus to a personal responsibility that patients themselves need to address. Using various routes of program dissemination, such as other allied health workers besides doctors and implementation of technology use helps promote healthy, preventive aims for the patients that in turn have positive effects for all stakeholders involved. Disease Management sounds like a wonderful alternative to the way medicine is currently delivered; I know some of my elderly relatives could stand to greatly benefit from it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I agree that disease management sounds like a great way of deliver care. I think it is always good to find new and innovative ways to address health care, and this looks like one of those ways. thanks for your post.
I admit it... I am a cynic--disease management is a great idea, but only for those who can afford it. And it's probably going to make tons of money because the aged is where most of the healthcare spending is right now. I really torn between investing in technologies that can improve the lives of my elderly relatives or in technologies for the health of posterity.
ivette, i totally agree regarding senior citizens. it's important when it's being marketed/introduced that people understand that it's not necessary to use fancy technology. elderly people may not know how to use a computer, but they do know how to use a phone, BP monitor, diabetes monitoring equipment. a senior friend of mine made very frequent visits to the ER, which was costly to her (taxi, time, emotions) and to the system. if she felt more connected from her home, i think it would be enormously beneficial.
The Disease Management case study was very interesting. It certainly seems practical in the face of aging populations.
Post a Comment