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home healthcare is a fast growing business and requires accurate patient ID

Homecare: The World’s Fastest Growing Industry?

home healthcare is a fast growing business and requires accurate patient ID

The following guest post on homecare was submitted by Be Independent Home Care.

As of now, the US healthcare industry is worth $84 billion and employs 1.7 million people. Employment in homecare as a home health aide is one of the fastest growing occupations in the country, with a growth rate of 38% expected by 2024 from a decade previously. On the basis of those statistics, the industry appears to be thriving.

A further inspection of the full picture, though, shows that even this substantial growth rate might not be enough to keep up with demand. The number of senior citizens in the U.S. is getting larger and larger every single day, with the senior population projected to reach 83 million by the end of this year. Where once there was 11 prospective family caregivers per person in need of care, that ratio could dwindle to four possible caregivers per person in the next 30 years. The days of lay caregiving seem to be coming to an end.

Furthermore, the need is not just for more healthcare professionals to provide the necessary care; the requisite standards of care are growing higher all the time. Healthcare providers and agencies need to meet strict licensing regulations which, while necessary in order to ensure that patients are cared for adequately, will further limit the pool of potential caregivers.

Be Independent Home Care, an Irish provider of one-on-one homecare, has produced this absorbing and thought-provoking infographic on the current state of the healthcare industry and the road down which it is traveling. The demand for healthcare services means that the industry should be booming, but is the supply of qualified healthcare professionals there to meet it?

home healthcare is a fast growing business and requires accurate patient ID

healthcare of the future will change the way we are treated as patients

Infographic: Healthcare of the Future

healthcare of the future will change the way we are treated as patients

The global healthcare industry is riding the crest of a wave of major technological revolution, with the industry standing to gain billions of dollars from the dawn of virtual home visits and apps that can diagnose your illness. To give you an idea of just how big an impact this technology-led future may have, research shows that replacing ambulatory visits with virtual healthcare can save 37,000 American physicians an average of five minutes per encounter, resulting in time savings to the value of more than $6.5 billion.

Home Healthcare Adaptations, an Irish-based provider of household adaptations for people with limited mobility, has created this infographic which explores the brave new future that awaits the healthcare industry. Thanks to technological advances such as hologram house calls, which involve a doctor ‘visiting’ a patient in their home in hologram form, healthcare operations can be carried out far more rapidly. With patients receiving quicker treatment, the demands on doctors and nurses are eased, allowing them to better tend to the needs of patients, which in turn leads to patients being more likely to receive the help they need. It’s a cyclical process where everybody wins.

However, there are some obstacles that need to be overcome before virtual healthcare truly takes a vice-like hold on the industry. Any doctors providing telemedicine services will need to receive, or quality for, licensing, while the need for new reimbursement channels will require the use of financial and human resources in streamlining the smooth operation of this technology.

These obstacles pale in comparison, though, to the potential game-changing benefits that are on offer. Virtual healthcare may still seem like a fantasy for now, but it won’t be that way for much longer.

healthcare of the future will change the way we are treated as patients

healthcare technology is rapidly evolving and helping to save more patient lives

How Technology is Saving Lives: The Healthcare Revolution

healthcare technology is rapidly evolving and helping to save more patient lives

The following guest post was submitted by Mission Safety Services, a safety services company dedicated to providing the highest level of safety training services across all of our divisions.

We live in an age where the use of technology dominates our lives and these technological developments have had an amazingly positive impact on the healthcare industry. Technology has heavily influenced the improvement in our health and the increased life expectancy we are seeing today.

In particular, the progress we have made in cancer research and the greater survival rates have been heavily influenced by developments in technology. It’s amazing that technology played a role in saving 1.2 million lives between 1991 and 2009 thanks to progress in cancer treatments and detection.

Malaria is thought to have killed more people than all wars put together and technology is helping reduce this startling statistic. Something as simple as a bed net with insecticide has reduced malaria in children under 5 by 20%.

Also, stem cell research has limitless possibilities to save lives. We are still progressing with this development but diseases such as heart disease and alzheimer’s disease may be hugely reduced through stem cell research and we are already making good progress.

Let’s not forget the importance of the internet and how it has increased healthcare efficiency. Healthcare facilities are reaching patients through social media and doctors have access to thousands of medical books at the touch of a button.

This info-graphic from Mission Safety Services outlines the progress we have made, the work that is being done, and possible future developments in technology that have potential to make real change.

healthcare technology is rapidly evolving and helping to save more patient lives