The innovations brought by the digital industrial revolution, defined as Industry 4.0, have also started to manifest themselves in the healthcare sector. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş states that digital transformation in healthcare facilitates access to information resources and minimizes human-induced errors, adding that quarantine and isolation practices, especially those that entered our lives with Covid-19, accelerated digital transformation in healthcare. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş emphasizes that the most significant advantage of using digital technology in healthcare is reducing the workload of hospitals and physicians. Altıntaş also points out that VR technologies, which began to be implemented with digital transformation, play an active role in treatment and therapy processes.
VR technologies play an active role in treatment and therapy processes…
Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Health Management Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş made evaluations about the advantages provided by the applications that have entered our lives with digital transformation in healthcare.
Digital industry also developed the healthcare sector
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş stated that with the digital industrial revolution called Industry 4.0, which we witnessed in the 21st century, machine power replaced human power, and production processes became self-manageable, and added: “High technology and innovation lie at the foundation of the digital industry. The digital industry, which brings together information technologies and industry, has also shown development in the healthcare sector. Turkey began digital transformation in healthcare services after the 2000s, when internet usage became widespread.”
Human-induced errors are minimized
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş stated that digital transformation in healthcare can be defined as the use of digital technology in all processes from the production of healthcare services to their delivery to the patient and patient follow-up, and added: “These technologies, known as tele-medicine and tele-health, which mean the remote execution of diagnosis and treatment processes, are among the most frequently used services today. Digital transformation in healthcare facilitates access to medical information resources, minimizes human-induced errors, and increases patient safety and service quality.”
Digital transformation became mandatory with Covid-19
Emphasizing that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation in healthcare, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş said: “It can even be said that the quarantine and isolation practices brought by the pandemic made this mandatory. The HES (Hayat Eve Sığar - Life Fits into Home) application, developed to reduce contact and control the spread of the epidemic, is the best example of this. In addition, remote examination and e-prescription applications, fever measurement with thermal cameras, cleaning robots, and wearable technologies such as smartwatches and smart wristbands are among the digital health technologies that entered our lives during the pandemic period.”
Physicians' workload and examination queues are decreasing
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş stated, ‘The most significant advantage of using digital technology in healthcare is reducing the workload of hospitals and physicians,’ and continued:
“Especially with the personal health system (e-Nabız), patients; view and manage their test reports, examination information, and previously written prescriptions, and physicians can access the patient's health data from anywhere within the patient's consent. Smart connection of data to the system provides patients with better and faster treatment opportunities. Recording documents digitally, in other words, transitioning to a paperless office, reduces filing costs while saving time. Another advantage of digital transformation emerges with the central physician appointment system (MHRS). This application allows individuals to reach all hospitals nationwide via the internet or phone for appointment purposes. Thanks to the application, examination queues and patient waiting times in hospitals are prevented, thus reducing crowds.”
Wearable technologies make life easier
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş stated that wearable technologies are also among the applications that make life easier within the scope of digital transformation in healthcare, and said: “Thanks to this, complex devices in the hospital are transferred to the virtual environment. Whether people are sick or not, they can access their blood pressure, sugar, pulse, blood oxygen level, sleep duration, and similar measurements with wearable technologies such as smartwatches and smart wristbands. In this way, everyone has become able to monitor their own health status.”
Big data can be accessed in healthcare with digital technologies
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuğba Altıntaş stated that the digital industry era is the era of big data and continued:
“Thanks to digital technologies and portable/wearable technologies, big data can be accessed in the field of medicine and health. Different types of health data collected from various sources enable artificial intelligence to process the data with machine learning. Thus, machine learning can be applied in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, epidemic spread predictions, radiotherapy, drug production, and similar fields. Virtual reality (VR) technologies also play a major role in treatment and therapy processes. VR technologies are utilized in areas such as robotic surgery, physical therapy, psychotherapy, and health education. It is believed that VR technologies will be utilized in different healthcare areas in the future. Furthermore, wearable and attachable devices developed with Internet of Things (IoT)-based applications, such as smartwatches, smart wristbands, EEG headphones, stress-controlling wristbands, and smart shoes that measure step count and calories burned, are predicted to be in use with much more advanced systems and in new areas in the near future.”