patients - Digital tools
Digital tools that can empower you as a patient to better manage your healthcare
Digital tools are modes of technologies that can help patients like you to take more control of your health condition(s) and wellbeing.
They can help alleviate your stress of coping with any long-term health problem and encourage you to be more independent. Understanding your long-term health condition better and adopting a healthy lifestyle should help you to slow down any deterioration of your health and prevent complications from occurring.
Selecting the right type of digital tools available to help you should result in all if not some of the following positives:
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Improved patient empowerment while being equipped with the right resources to self-manage your healthcare.
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Fewer visits to A&E and less likelihood of admission to hospital; this will alleviate strain on the NHS, especially for conditions that can be managed with the right digital tools.
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Adoption of good, healthy lifestyle habits
You’ll need to find digital tools that are available, affordable and accessible to you and match your comfort zone. But you can get someone else (eg a friend or carer) to help you build your confidence and ability to use technology you’ve not tried yet – find trusted apps on your phone, use your tablet to make a video call –with friends or even your GP, start interactive texting with a nurse in your GP’s surgery, join a WhatApp group run by a nurse to help you learn from peers how they combat their health problems.
The use of technology to enable you to take more responsibility for your health might make all the difference to how your health condition is managed and prevent any further deterioration. It should be easier for you to redress any harmful lifestyle habits, such as drinking too much alcohol, being overweight or even obese, and smoking cigarettes – by using apps such as WhatsApp; or joining a closed Facebook group maybe set up by a nurse in your local surgery to help you and others struggling to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
Having a basic understanding of the digital tools available and the practical ways they can aid your health or wellbeing is the first step to managing your healthcare independently in line with the treatment and advice you are getting from doctors and nurses.
So take a look at the resources on this website so that you can become more familiar with what is possible for you to try that suits how techy you are, and how the various types of digital tools might help you.
Ambar Iqbal, Dr Ruth Chambers 15.5.20
