ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) is an efficient way to process and communicate the information in any industry. In case of healthcare, it is used to store the information in private or sharable mode, communicate the problems, better research, and healthcare communication to tackle the problems of remote areas via telemedicine (an application of clinical medicine to communicate via phone, email, video-conferencing or other sources of the internet). Telemedicine is a useful strategy being used in case of shortage of doctors in an emergency to share experienced information by professional doctors and communicate the important information to better tackle any type of problem occurred far away.
As we know people living under the poverty line are mostly illiterate and are more prone to diseases because of their carelessness. ICT in healthcare helps to reduce poverty of the country by improving the health of their countrymen. Healthy nation means the residents are energetic have potential to work more productively. Thus, ICT strengthens healthcare by better detection of disease, prevention, and care.
There are three broad divisions of healthcare where ICT is used:
As we discussed telemedicine, a great application of ICT in healthcare, another one is radio which is widely used to spread information. For instance, when HIV AIDS was first detected in one area of the country, the requirement was aware the people about the disease and its cure throughout the nation. Healthcare spread the information to each and every area by using the radio as a source of communication.
Another useful task accomplished by ICT is to keep the information up to date. As doctors work for years, in some manner the researches too, new inventions and innovations are done, a lot of new inventions are communicated to the groundworks and feedback is taken for effectiveness. These things are not always can be done by visiting the place these are done via common conferences of healthcare and the researchers.
In all, the ICT has made things more reachable, understanding, sharable and improvable. Promoting it to a higher level will surely be more useful.
Panaxea is healthcare and consultancy of the Netherlands