Cardiology
Patients with sleep apnea will experience chronic recurrent hypoxia at night.
It increases the possibility of vascular inflammation and accelerates the progression of atherosclerosis, which further induces acute coronary artery disease.
At the same time, hypoxia causes sympathetic excitation, which increases the
patient’s blood pressure and heart rate, exacerbating cardiac ischemia and
hypoxia and metabolic disorders.
What’s more, during an apnea attack, the patient will breathe hard, leading to some
behaviors that may accelerate the onset of heart failure,such as increased negative
pressure in the chest cavity, increased venous return, and heart burden.
Therefore, taking a sleep test and combining related treatments at the early stage of symptoms will greatly reduce the possibility of various heart attacks.
Viatom’s performance in telemedicine
Viatom is a research and development-focused high-tech company affiliated with the artificial intelligence (AI) division of Lepu Medical Group. Lepu Group was founded in 1999 in Beijing, China. The main focus of Viatom is the production of home medical devices and mobile medical equipment to help people understand and control their health.
Viatom contributes to telemedicine in healthcare through great devices
An important factor driving the development of telemedicine solutions is the AI-ECG platform, the first ECG analysis software approved by CE, FDA, and NMPA in China. Unlike traditional ECG algorithms, the AI-ECG platform can diagnose 16 categories, more than 104 kinds of abnormal ECG/EKG events. After diagnosis, the platform will automatically complete the whole process of data upload, analysis, and report generation. More importantly, it’s not only available to hospitals, health centers, and clinics but also to individuals.
Sleep health management is Viatom’s first step in telemedicine. Sleep health is closely linked to cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disease. According to the CDC report, adults who slept less than seven hours had a 4.8 percent risk of developing heart disease, compared with 3.4 percent for those who slept more than seven hours. [1] Therefore, sleep health diagnostic systems have received great attention in the fields of chronic disease care, preventive care, and occupational health. Viatom’s oximeter has been integrated into well-known sleep diagnostic systems and has become an important front-end sleep data collection device. Users can wear a ring oximeter for one night to learn about sleep quality, sleep efficiency, fragmentation, periodicity and other data throughout the night, as well as whether there is a breathing disorder. Compared with complex polysomnography monitors, Viatom’s sleep recording analysis system is more compact and portable, easy to operate, and comfortable to wear. It can collect and analyze data efficiently and accurately, providing important reference data for clinical sleep diagnosis.
With the advancement of medical technology, changes in medical insurance policies and the improvement of health awareness, more and more patients hope to cope with chronic diseases at home, and doctors also hope to get rid of the tedious work of monitoring registration records. Therefore, the partnership with the telemonitoring patient monitoring platform is Viatom’s second step in the telemedicine space.
How do Viatom products benefit telemedicine?
Viatom’s blood oxygen, blood pressure, multi-parameter series products have been widely recognized by the market and are exported to many countries and regions. After the concept of telemedicine continued to expand, Viatom was favored by many telemedicine companies and successfully connected to the telemedicine real-time service platform. With the addition of the Internet and the decentralization of medical institutions, the center of telemedicine is no longer limited to hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices but extends to patients’ homes. Hospitals and platforms seamlessly connect clinicians with patients outside the hospital through Viatom’s devices, making a huge contribution to monitoring treatment outcomes, reducing healthcare costs, and improving the quality of care. Viatom’s devices all allow patients to access data through their own mobile devices, reducing the times and length of their hospital stays.
Health data collected through wearables alone is also not enough. To increase patient engagement in remote care, Viatom also provides reliable medical analytics diagnostics within existing workflows, such as AI-ECG, allowing patients to access vital signs data in real-time and providing more reliable data support for clinicians to proactively assess danger signs and make real-time recommendations. Viatom’s wearable devices and portable medical devices play an indispensable role in the complex healthcare system technology platform, effectively promoting the further development and innovation of the healthcare Internet.
What does telemedicine bring to the medical industry?
Telemedicine services improved many aspects of the medical industry. Below, you can see the different benefits of telemedicine in healthcare.
· Convenience – For remote areas, telemedicine can expand the coverage of high-quality medical care and reduce the mortality and deterioration rate of common diseases. Especially when Covid-19 continues to affect people’s lives and health, it is necessary to equip with an oximeter. The cooperation of oximeter and hospital remote monitoring can monitor people’s health to the greatest extent. And these monitoring can be carried out at home, which can reduce unnecessary outdoor activities during the epidemic. In addition, the convenience of telemedicine is also reflected in the fact that there is no need for face-to-face diagnosis or mechanical registration and printing reports to help improve patient compliance. Patients can participate in their treatment due to ease of access to a healthcare provider without having to schedule an appointment.
· Economic benefits – Telemedicine can provide financial benefits to both patients and hospitals. One of the major benefits of telemedicine is its ability to reduce the turnaround time for delivering results to the patient. For patients, telemedicine helps save medical costs and time costs. Especially for patients with chronic diseases， telemedicine allows for better alerts and warnings, reducing the cost of care. For hospitals, telemedicine relies more on online intelligent systems that help save many labor costs. Intelligent systems rely on data and accurate algorithms, which can help reduce the cost of errors. It is worth noting that telemedicine has a higher rate of health insurance reimbursement. The presence of telemedicine centers can also increase healthcare awareness in rural communities.
· Efficiency increase – Thanks to telemedicine, healthcare professionals have the opportunity to provide care to a bigger number of patients. Besides, telemedicine frees doctors with cutting-edge technology from complex and tedious mechanical work. This increases efficiency and productivity.
General medical care vs. remote intelligent medical care
Information technology has greatly improved the convenience of medical and health services. Compared with the general medical model, the formation of a telemedicine service system can better benefit the public.
Intelligence
Telemedicine is smarter. Telemedicine technology allows healthcare professionals to use telecommunications technology to assess, diagnose and treat patients from a distance. Intelligent telemedicine enables doctors to make rich real-time, data-driven choices to help produce a better patient experience and improve health outcomes. With the support of telemedicine, time and distance are no longer a problem.
Accuracy
Is telemedicine as reliable and accurate as an in-person visit? Telemedicine is considered to be an effective means to diagnose cases and track the disease. All Viatom’s products provide medical-grade data, which are certified by the FDA and CE and well sold worldwide. The self-developed AI-ECG platform is the first ECG analysis software approved by FDA, CE, and NMPA in China.
Speed
Compared with ordinary medical treatment, telemedicine goes beyond the limitations of time and space. With telemedicine, patients can get professional medical experience more quickly. Telemedicine can effectively connect doctors with patients and even other clinical experts. It is an efficient and satisfactory nursing model. The use of telemedicine is growing with its rapid development. Healthcare ecosystems are increasingly dependent on telemedicine in many ways, including diagnosis.
Applications of telemedicine
As seen above, telemedicine in healthcare has various benefits, all of which take every aspect of patient care to a new level. Telemedicine in healthcare also has several applications. They are:
· Remote chronic disease management – telemedicine in healthcare improves the management of chronic diseases in many ways, including medication reconciliation, patient education, improved access to care, and patient participation. Telemedicine can detect the patient’s condition at any time and adjust the drug dosage according to the changes of the patient’s condition in time. In addition, the convenience of telemedicine ensures faster medical services. Patients can participate in medical services with less time and distance.
Once patients leave the hospital after surgery, they may suffer from complications such as infection and organ rejection. If the physiological indicators of the patient after discharge are not monitored in time, the patient may return to the hospital soon, requiring re-hospitalization or surgery. The cost of hospitalization will also greatly increase. Therefore, in the postoperative period, the top challenges faced by patients are how to manage their health status at home and how to dynamically adjust postoperative medication.
Viatom’s blood pressure monitor, oximeter, multi-parameter monitor and other wearable medical devices can monitor the patient’s blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose, blood oxygen saturation and other indicators in real-time after connecting to the hospital’s platform. Through continuous monitoring, doctors and nursing staff can respond to data earlier and take timely intervention measures before the disease worsens. Increased patient engagement also made them more willing to report their own characteristics and symptoms.
· Remote preventative care – various groups of people in both developed and developing countries have no easy access to healthcare for one reason to another. Telemedicine steps in to provide patient education and contribute to the prevention of various health problems. Telemedicine can provide remote and economically underdeveloped countries and regions with remote patient monitoring, emergency nursing guidance, clinical education case analysis, continuous nursing, remote clinical consultation and training, etc., to achieve medical education and technology sharing.
· Remote nursing home medical support – nursing home patients are at a higher risk of health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and events, or they already have an illness that requires proactive management. Telemedicine ensures persons in nursing homes receive adequate medical support. Telemedicine allows caregivers to continuously monitor key living parameters of nursing home patients. Consult and monitor their health with the treatment provided by a general practitioner, nutritionist, psychologist, or other medical specialists. Based on the results of the telehealth records, the designated doctor can contact the patient, schedule a visit, or call emergency ambulance services.
History of telemedicine
The history of telemedicine started a lot longer than we believe. Ever since ancient times, people have been trying to improve communications and make access to healthcare easier, in one way or another. Below, we’re going to focus on modern history and the most important events that led to the development and evolution of telemedicine:
· The 1840s – the invention of the electric telegraph revolutionized communication across long physical distances. The first telecommunication for medical purposes occurred during the Civil War (1861-1865).
· 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
· In the early 1900s – radio communication emerged. In 1928, one of the first telehealth efforts via radio communication happened.
· The mid-1950s – Nebraska Psychiatric unit used closed-circuit TV to monitor patients.
· 1964 – first interactive, two-way video link in a medical setting was established.
· The 1960s – telemedicine got a first modern upgrade thanks to NASA and space travel efforts.
· The 1970s – the federal government funded seven telemedicine research and development projects to explore how technology can help overcome major challenges in healthcare.
· The 1990s and on – the arrival and evolution of the internet changes the speed of communication and paves the way to the development of programs, features, and products in telemedicine for improved patient care, even in remote areas.
The latest breakthrough in telemedicine
Before COVID, the use of telehealth in the United States was going up, but not at a fast pace. Just 45% of outpatient and 33% of inpatient facilities provided telehealth services. As of summer 2020, roughly 75% of American hospitals started relying on telehealth. That’s a 42% increase from the year prior. [2]
What about telemedicine and technological advances in 2022? With usage rates in telehealth rising 38 times higher compared to before the pandemic, it’s inarguable that the value of such services will continue to expand. Experts estimate that a virtual appointment could advance beyond a 1:1 patient-doctor visit via video conferencing. Since there has been an increase in behavioral health management, tech can enable group sessions to receive support and counsel at once. [3]
With that being said, Pharma companies in Europe can also benefit if they were to use telemedicine platforms to boost cost-effectiveness and continuity of care, research shows.
Conclusion
The role of telemedicine in healthcare is immeasurable. Telemedicine is patient-centered, and it provides a new level of care. It benefits both patients and hospitals. It is not difficult to imagine that the development of telemedicine will be faster and more complete in the future. Viatom is one of the most respected brands in this industry due to the extensive research and development program and the use of AI.
