For any business to stay competitive, that company must have the ability to continue to evolve and change with the times. Who could ever believe that a dominant company like Kodak could go out of business? They went out of business because of their inability to adapt to a change over to digital technology. Ten years ago the Marriott hotel industry had the largest number of rooms available to the purchasing public. In 2017, the largest numbers of rooms is not controlled by the hotel industry; It is controlled by AirBNB. Uber has severely threatened the Yellow cab business in NYC and across the country. The world is going digital and every business must adapt in order to survive.

The Businesses that need to adapt to this changing technology include Modern Medicine. When a patient has Surgery and needs follow up by the surgeon, should a patient have to travel 30, 60 or 90 minutes for a 3 minute wound inspection by the doctor or nurse? Or could this have been done through a telemedicine visit? It may be easier for the doctor when the patients all arrive, register and then wait to be seen, but it is certainly not easier for the patients involved. Virtual Healthcare (Tele medicine) is part of a growing initiative to improve quality and give better value in healthcare for a large population of patients. Through this initiative patients should be able to expect care at the touch of a bottom. Digital Healthcare has evolved to the provision of four different services.

 

-1 Opinion consults
-2 Opinion consults to inter-hospital consults
-3 Urgent care consults
-4 Virtual visits for second opinion consults

 

The world of modern medicine is changing rapidly and telemedicine will be very much a part of the future of healthcare in the United States. This important market trend has encouraged me to do my project on an application to make it easier for elderly and sick patients to access the digital world and their physician.
I would like to focus on patients with heart conditions. Patients with heart conditions get an EKG (electrocardiogram) at every visit. My project would focus on transmitting an EKG from the patient to the doctor during this virtual visit, avoiding the need for these sick, elderly patients to get transportation to the office of their doctor.