Gadgets for healthy ageing

There is now a wide range of digital health solutions across the public and private healthcare sectors to assist senior citizens in their health care. — 123rf

DIGITAL technology has proven to be a vital aid for healthy ageing.

Across the public and private healthcare sectors there is a wide range of digital health solutions, like telemedicine, mobile health applications, remote monitoring devices, and predictive analytics and diagnostic tools. There are plenty of mobile health apps that offer services like online appointment booking, keeping ehealth records, and epharmacy services.

MyUBAT under the government’s Pharmacy Services Programme, for instance, allows patients to use an app or website to reduce the waiting time to collect medicines at more than 500 clinics nationwide and ease registrations to get their prescriptions.

On Aug 11, it was reported that subsidised programmes will soon be introduced through a welfare NGO in Penang, PgCare Society, with the support of state assemblymen, to equip aged family members from the low-income group with automatic GPS tracking devices.

Here are other digital healthcare services used by senior citizens:

Mobile diagnostics

Mobile phones are used to enable patients to identify and manage their health. Making accessibility a priority allows even patients in rural areas to assess their health. However, these must be used cautiously as patients may erroneously assess their health in lieu of seeing a qualified medical professional.

Many healthcare providers in Malaysia have launched mobile applications to provide patients with access to medical advice, appointment scheduling, and prescription refills, but it should be noted that there is currently no standardised system to evaluate their effectiveness.

Telemedicine

A major element in digital healthcare, telemedicine focuses on audio or video conferencing with doctors, and is becoming increasingly popular in Malaysia, particularly in rural areas where access to healthcare services is limited.

Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) released an advisory on virtual consultations in April 2020 to deal with the unprecedented Movement Control Order at the time. This has been developed into a guideline on telemedicine.

Crucially, this guideline requires practitioners to provide the same quality and standard of care to the patient as they would in an in-person situation, while adhering to the MMC’s guidelines on security and privacy as well.

“Registered Medical Practi-tioners must give due consideration to the safety of the patient and maintain a high standard of patient care. They should consider whether the telemedicine medium utilised allows them to adequately assess the patient’s presenting problems; and if it does not, arrange for a timely in-person assessment. This also applies to situations when the technology utilised is inadequate,” the guideline reads.

Remote patient monitoring

Many private health facilities provide their elderly patients with wearables that track their health metrics. These wearables can come in the form of wristbands and smartwatches with intelligent sensors and connected features that enable medical service providers to keep track of patients’ vital signs and health parameters continuously and remotely.

In certain cases, should the elderly patient experience an emergency, remote patient monitoring can save lives by alerting a trained professional or caretaker.

They can be integrated with telemedicine to give healthcare providers much more information about their patients.

About 79% of providers also use analytics and big data gained from remote patient monitoring to support patients’ health.