Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ground-breaking advancements in digital healthcare technologies, the healthcare industry has changed. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry in the United States has rapidly adopted digital health technologies to increase the quality and efficiency of healthcare services and practices, improve healthcare worker and patient experience, better secure confidential patient data, streamline the patient payment process, and more. 

Healthcare providers and consumers were skeptical of digital health services during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but since then provider and consumer attitudes toward digital healthcare have improved.

In fact, consumer adoption of virtual health technologies, such as mobile healthcare apps, grew from 11% during 2019 to 46% in 2020. 

Also, Digital healthcare models are rapidly increasing and integrating with each other, as well as with hybrid virtual/in-person digital models, and some regulatory changes that expanded the range of digital health services have become permanent 

The Future of Digital Healthcare

In this new era of digital healthcare:

• Health care providers are using digital healthcare technology to automate internal processes and efficiently screen medical documents 
• Both consumers and healthcare workers are increasingly embracing AI and human worker hybrid models 
• Mobile healthcare applications developed by agencies like Guaraná Technologies are becoming increasingly popular, widespread, necessary, and niche 
• Consumers can easily find affordable, on-demand care without having to leave their homes 

• AI is automating more and more mundane but necessary healthcare-related tasks, thereby freeing up human healthcare workers to focus on higher-level initiatives  
• AI is improving public health data interoperability, which, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will ensure that “electronic health information is shared appropriately between healthcare and public health partners in the right format, through the right channel at the right time”
• Patient e-visits with healthcare workers might become the norm

Healthcare and Mobile Apps 

There are countless exciting innovations in the world of digital healthcare. 

For instance, virtual reality devices offer therapy exercises and games to seniors suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. 

Also, mobile healthcare apps are becoming increasingly sophisticated and helpful, and healthcare sectors, as well as patients, are increasingly relying on and benefiting from them.

For instance, through these apps, patients can receive prescription medications at their front door. 

More, for patients, these apps:

• Schedule appoints
• Streamline payments and insurance claims
• Recommend treatment plans 
• Provide therapy 
• Track body temperature, insulin levels, and weight loss and gain
• Document symptoms
• Track treatment 
• Source discounts on prescriptions
• Search for nearby health services, practitioners, and resources 
• Maintain exercise regimes and breastfeeding regimes 

For healthcare professionals, mobile apps: 

• Track patient progress
• Streamline the intake process
• Offer educational training 
• Facilitate patient monitoring 
• Schedule shifts for hospital staff 
• Access data through patients’ apps to analyze symptoms, make diagnoses, and provide immediate care 
• Facilitate health record access and maintenance 

The healthcare industry is becoming increasingly digital, and mobile healthcare apps are leading the way.