Universal health care is a hot topic for discussion these days, with people arguing for and against it. While proponents of the system argue that it is the right of every human being, opponents argue that it may not be economically feasible, and may harm a lot more people than it will help. The issue is much more complicated by the fact that there is no one system in the world that is adopted by all the countries that currently has universal healthcare, and therefore it becomes difficult to gauge its success across the world. Let us try to break this complex issue to gain a better understanding of the system, and form informed opinions.

Universal health care is a system that ensures all the people in a region or a country gets healthcare without affecting their financial status. According to WHO Universal health coverage (UHC) means that all people and communities can use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship. In practice, this does not mean that everyone has insurance coverage or that all medical issues are covered by the insurance, it just means that everyone has access to healthcare.

Universal healthcare first started in Germany in 1883 with the sickness insurance law, which mandated industrial employers to provide insurance for their workers using funds made from deductions in employee wages and from employer contributions. By 1930s, almost all of western and central Europe had similar systems in place. Currently, of the 33 developed countries, all of them except the USA has universal healthcare.

Implementation strategies

Even though the definition of universal healthcare is uniform throughout the world, the implementation strategies used in different countries are very diverse and difficult to classify. Each of these systems are linked with the governing systems and the laws and regulations of that country, and therefore may even differ in different parts of a single country, as in the different provinces of Canada, where each province has reasons to determine what is considered essential, and where, how and who should provide the services.

In some cases, the government pays for healthcare from a single fund. In some countries like Canada, this would mean that the government pays private organizations which in turn provide healthcare to its public, while in countries like the United Kingdom, the government maintains a healthcare system, owning healthcare resources and employing healthcare professionals. Such systems are referred to as single-payer systems, which means that the fund for the system is managed directly by the government or a government regulated agency. In such a system, the entire population is brought together under a single health risk pool, and one set of standards for services offered, and the cost for these services. Generally, the idea is that the high healthcare costs that arise from the sicker section of the population are balanced by the low healthcare costs for the healthy section of the population.

In a multi-payer system, the medical costs are paid for by multiple entities, which may include the person or their family, their employer, and the government. Countries like Germany follow a multi-payer system, with a statutory health insurance, and private health insurance. Compared to single-payer systems, multi-payer systems provide more options to the patients, and are generally difficult for the governments to exploit, but falls below in terms of healthcare equity, risk pooling, and negotiations. Multi-payer systems are also associated with higher administrative costs.

In some countries like Switzerland and Germany, universal healthcare is enforced by legislation. In Switzerland, there are no free state-provided health services, but private health insurance is compulsory for all persons residing in Switzerland (within three months of taking up residence or being born in the country). Swiss are required to purchase basic health insurance, which covers a range of treatments detailed in the Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance. It is therefore the same throughout the country and avoids double standards in healthcare. Insurers are required to offer this basic insurance to everyone, regardless of age or medical condition.

The advantage of universal healthcare is that everyone gets medical coverage, no matter how poor they are, and everyone gets the same standard of care. Various studies have shown that universal healthcare has lead to healthier populations, with lower infant mortality rates and improved life expectancy. Universal healthcare is also associated with improved economic well being of the population. In Thailand within ten years of the implementation of Universal Health Scheme, the catastrophic healthcare expenditure in the poorest households fell from 6.8% to 2.8%. In Mexico, impoverishment from health expenditure fell from 3.3% in 2001 to 0.8% in 2010, with the implementation of a national protection programme called Seguro Popular, funded by general taxation and modest contributions from richer households.

Implementation of universal healthcare is complicated with a lot of difficult choices. The healthy section of the population ends up paying for the sicker section of the society, the money which may well be spent on economically better ventures, which will improve the quality of life for everyone. Universal healthcare may end up crippling the economy and may even lead to poor quality of healthcare, as doctors have more incentive for treating more patients, but less for treating fewer patients with more care. People may also be less careful of their health and can lead to less healthy choices if they don’t have the incentive to stay healthy.

So the debate on whether universal healthcare is good or bad, essentially is a debate on how to achieve universal healthcare - should it be done by implementing laws and regulations specifically for universal healthcare, or should we do it improve the overall standard of living that access to healthcare is not a problem for anyone.

The success of a universal healthcare system will depend on how it is implemented, and choices have to be made based on the size of the population, the economic well-being of the population, the available funding and the fine balance between the choice similar to as mentioned above.

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Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)

The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is a commendable initiative launched by the Indian government under the National Health Authority (NHA). Its primary objective is to establish a fully integrated healthcare system that caters to the needs of citizens across the country. By digitizing health records, ABDM serves as a crucial intersection for healthcare providers and patients, enabling seamless access to necessary healthcare services, regardless of their location or circumstances. Its ultimate goal is to provide individuals with the required health assistance they need to lead healthy and productive lives.

The objectives of having an integrated health ecosystem

Healthcare is a factor that is of high priority, making it vital to have an unbeatable system in place to keep it organized. This initiative aims to extend digitization throughout the healthcare industry to provide the highest quality of care to the public. This is realized by bridging the gap between the various entities in the healthcare industry, that are involved in providing services.

A few ideas that ABDM focuses to attain are as follows

● To establish a completely streamlined personal health record system with great accessibility for all users.

● To offer national portability of healthcare services.

● To encourage healthcare professionals to use the Clinical Decision Support system.

● To improve healthcare management from the analytics derived.

MocDoc software now supports ABDM

The ABDM-integrated system operates using the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) number, which serves as a unique identifier for users accessing healthcare services. The ABDM integrated system consists of several essential features, including:

Creating ABHA accounts: The ABDM system facilitates the easy registration of patients by completing and verifying their ABHA accounts.

Developing Health Information Provider (HIP) services: This involves implementing a system capable of securely sharing digital health records among healthcare providers.

Developing Health Information User (HIU) services: The ABDM system enables patients to access and utilize their health records with their consent.

Benefits of using an ABDM integrated management system

Health records are essential for facilitating the sharing, maintaining, and accessing of healthcare information. A digital solution aims at improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of health service delivery. Here are a few benefits of using ABDM-integrated software for healthcare facility management

● Preserving Digital Health Records

● Integrating longitudinal health records

● Efficient access to patient’s health records

● Easy doctor discovery

● Instant OPD registration

● Remote healthcare services like teleconsultation and e-pharmacy

MocDoc is a cloud-based digital platform that offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for healthcare facilities. As an ABDM-compliant service provider, we take great pride in contributing to the advancement of digital healthcare services across the nation.

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In recent years, medical stores have transformed from a place where you get your medicines, to a place where all your medical needs, such as mobility aids, nutraceuticals, health monitoring devices, and other biomedical supplies are met. Other than providing the required supplies, pharmacies also serve as a place where patients can get adequate information and advice regarding the dosage of a medicine, the composition of a drug, and the possible side effects. With this evolution, they have shifted from being just pharmacies, and it has become much more difficult to manage them.

Pharmacy management software helps you manage a pharmacy by keeping track of drugs, medicines, and supplies ranging from mobility aids to disposables. It gets you the information you require right at your fingertips. This can ensure that you never run out of essential medicines and supplies and also give your customers a better experience.

Here are 4 exciting ways in which pharmacy management software can help enhance your customer service while reducing costs.

Better customer experience

A personalized service, catering to the specific needs of a customer, helps you to provide a better experience for your customer and therefore helps you retain them. A simple query about a past purchase will help you to build a personal relationship with them, which may prove fruitful in the long run.

The pharmacy management system allows you to log and track the entire purchase history of a customer, their insurance information, and other relevant information. This will you to give a better experience to the customers, and at the same time, easily keep track of your sales.

With the help of your customer’s medical history, you’ll be able to provide better advice to them, avoiding allergies or any counteracting drugs the doctors may have missed. You'll also be able to remind your customers about the next drug purchase in their schedule.

Quick access to information regarding similar drugs at lower prices will make it easier for you to provide economically better options to your customers.

Good Resource Management:

Pharmacy management software helps you to manage your pharmacy’s resources easily and in an efficient manner. With the help of a good interface, real-time reports, inventory management, and precise invoicing, you can easily understand and manage all the resources at your disposal.

Inventory Management helps you to easily keep track of medicine and equipment stock. You can easily check if any of the out-of-stock items are available in any of your other stores. With order tracking, you can give timely reports about the estimated time of delivery to your customers in case of any special orders.

With the help of precise invoicing, you can keep track of your expenses, and income and therefore easily manage your store’s finances. The system helps you to better understand the financial situation of your store and gives you insights on how to fine-tune your business.

An online pharmacy management software will also help you to manage stores in multiple locations effectively. You can easily manage the stock and sales in all of your stores from your smartphone or laptop.

Effective Sales Management:

Now you can easily and efficiently manage your sales with the help of pharmacy management software. Now you can keep track of every sale, the price of every drug and equipment sold, and the profit made. You can now easily analyze your business prospect and the flow of cash, and get the information you need to optimize the process

A good pharmacy management software can be integrated with your current workflow and equipment, and make maximum use of them. A barcode scanner plugged into the software can make it easy for you to document your sales, track your inventory, and at the same time provide a faster checkout for your customer.

Online services

With the advent of online pharmacies, more and more customers prefer to get their drugs delivered to their doorstep, and this has threatened the sales of traditional pharmacies. However, customers still find their neighborhood stores much more trustworthy. Take advantage of this by providing an online sales portal for your pharmacy. With the help of cloud-based software integrated with a sales portal, you can easily provide this service to your customers. The online software will also enable you to manage your pharmacies from anywhere in the world.

Essentially, pharmacy management software will help you to provide a better customer experience, manage your resources and sales efficiently, and enable you to take your sales online.

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The healthcare industry has started to see considerable changes in the past few years. From cancer and chronic diseases to risk assessment and radiology, there are multiple opportunities to influence technology. It is used to implement more effective, impactful, and precise interferences at the right moment in taking care of the patients.

Artificial Intelligence acts as the central aspect, which drives enhancement across patient care. AI provides many advantages over other clinical decision-making techniques and traditional analytics. Getting to know algorithms can become more accurate and precise. It is because they allow humans to gain insights into diagnostics, and interact with training data, treatment variability, care processes, and patient outcomes.

8 Ways AI Impacts Healthcare:

Proceed below to find out some practical ways in which AI changes the healthcare industry.

1. Integrating Machine and Mind using Brain-Computer medium:

Utilizing systems to collaborate is not a unique idea. However making direct communication between humans and technology without any requirements for monitors, mice, and keyboards is considered to be an essential area of research with a significant application for several patients.

Trauma and Neurological diseases to the nervous system may take away the abilities of patients like moving, interacting, and speaking meaningfully with the surroundings of people. BCIs (Brain-Computer mediums backed by AI can restore the primary experiences.

It's easy to decode the activities of the neural system affiliated with the purposive moment of one by utilizing AI and BCI. We can enable the person to collaborate the same way as different people work four to five times across the morning course. The communications are processed with the phone, computer, tablet, or using other universal communication technology. The medium of Brain-Computer helps to increase the quality of patient life with locked-in syndrome, strokes, ALS, spinal cord injuries, and more.

2. Producing the next generation of tools in Radiology:

The images of Radiology acquired by X-rays, CT scanners, and MRI machines provide non-intrusive reflectivity into the human body's inner workings. But many processes in diagnosing depend on the biopsies' physical tissue samples, which carry a risk that includes the infection potential.

According to experts, AI helps the next generation of tools in Radiology that are detailed and accurate to rebuild the requirements for tissue samples. Providers also can target the treatments and define the cancer aggressiveness appropriately. AI helps to make use of virtual biopsies and progress the intuitive field of radiomics that deal with utilizing image-based algorithms to represent the tumors' genetic properties and phenotypes.

3. Extending access to care in developing or underserved regions:

The lack of professional healthcare providers like radiologists and ultrasound technicians can constrain access to critical care in developing nations across the globe. AI enables mitigating the cause of a severe deficit of professional clinical staff by handling different duties that are provided to humans.

4. Decreasing the problems of using Electronic Health Records:

Electronic Health Record has a significant role in the industry of healthcare journey into digital recording. However, the switch comes with numerous issues affiliated with user burnout, endless documentation, and cognitive overload. The developers of Electronic Medical Records are now making use of Artificial Intelligence to develop more new interfaces. It also automates several processes in a routine which consumes the user's time.

All users spend their time on three crucial processes, namely sorting through the right thing, order entry, and clinical documentation. Dictation and voice recognition help to enhance the process of clinical documents, but NLP (Natural Language Processing) tools are not suitable for it. AI also helps to take care of routine requests like result notifications, and medication refills from the inbox. It also enables to make use of the tasks that severely need the attention of the client.

5. Comprising the Antibiotic Resistance risks:

Antibiotic Resistance is a threat that grows huge across the globe due to the overuse of drugs. Multi-drug resistance organisms can make a massive change in the hospital setting and also claim various numbers of lives every year.

Electronic Health Record information can help in highlighting the patient's problems and identifying the patterns in infection before they develop to show symptoms. Influencing AI and machine learning tools to drive all these analytics can create more accurate, faster alerts, and also improve their accuracy for healthcare providers.

6. Make accurate analytics for Pathology images:

According to Jeffrey Golden, Professor of Pathology at HMS and MD, Chair of the Pathology Department at BWH and Pathologist acts as the crucial diagnostic data source for providers across the care delivery spectrum.

70% of all healthcare decisions depend on the pathology results. AI also enhances productivity by finding out the features of interest in slides. AI is capable of screening through the slides and then directed to the right path to look, so it's easy to assess what is significant. It helps to enhance the effectiveness of the pathologist's use and improve the time value they spend on every case.

7. Admitting Intelligence to Machines and Medical Devices:

Smart devices provide everything from the refrigerator to real-time video to cars, which can detect when the driver gets distracted. Smart devices are essential for taking care of the patients in the ICU.

Artificial Intelligence helps to improve the ability to suggest Sepsis, identify degradation, and sense the complication development. The reason is that it can enhance the outcome significantly. It also decreases the cost related to penalties in clinic-obtained conditions. Making use of intelligent algorithms in smart devices can reduce problems for physicians and doctors while making sure that patients receive care at the right time possible.

8. Progress Immunotherapy usage for the treatment of cancer:

Immunotherapy is considered to be the critical avenue for cancer treatment. The therapy makes use of the immune system in the body to attack malice. In this case, patients can beat difficult tumors. The fact is that fewer patients get the advantage of immunotherapy. Oncologists do not have a reliable and precise method for recognizing which patient can gain with this immunotherapy. The algorithms of Machine learning and their ability to utilize different datasets illuminate unique options for exploiting therapies for a single genetic makeup.

Bottom Line:

Apart from the above impacts, there are several factors like

· Utilizing EHR as a precision risk predictor,

· Taking care of the patient's health through personal devices and wearable,

· Turning smartphone selfies into a robust and useful diagnostic tool,

· Making clinical decisions using AI is one of them that can change the healthcare industry.

Empowering a new generation of systems and tools to make doctors more effective when delivering care, aware of nuances, and more likely to get rid of the problems. AI plays a vital role in bringing different breakthroughs in caring for patients and also in clinical quality

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How could healthcare solutions be investments? Well, investments are about profitable returns but in any form. Along with automating the workflow patterns, healthcare solutions also connect you with your patients effectively, for instance, sending healthcare tips or sending appointment reminders via email and SMS, benefitting not only the organization but also patients. They have made work easier to handle all along the workflow, increasing productivity and patient satisfaction.

Here's how healthcare solutions benefit the end-users...

Healthcare Solutions for the front desk:

From tele-appointment to billing, the front desk is the busiest area, with piles of work accumulating every minute. Here is how healthcare solutions have made it possible for them to break down tasks and work more efficiently.

Appointment management:

Create patient IDs and schedule appointments in a snap with automated steps. With appointment calendars designed for the front desk, stay posted with all the appointments falling for the day or week later and send patients automated messages on their upcoming appointments.

Billing Management:

Let your patients do some billing. With latest healthcare software allows your patients to pay you online via patient apps, where they can view treatment summaries, and insurance plans or book video consultation appointments and make payments.

Healthcare Solutions for Doctors:

Doctors are the principal end-users of healthcare solutions. These solutions keep doctors from doing those repetitive, tedious tasks with their automated functions, eventually reducing stress for them.

Patient charts:

Wouldn't it be such a time saver to be served all the information you need right at your desk? Have all the patient information you need like, history, allergies, past surgeries, treatment, medication, etc., on a snap.

Cross communication:

Share patients' electronic health records with patients themselves or other departments right from your desk! With all the medicines updated in these systems, select the medicines and send e-prescriptions to your patients and pharmacy. Go paperless, and reduce manual work.

Healthcare Solutions for Frontline Workers:

Taking care of so many things at once, it's a tough job that nurses do! Here's how healthcare solutions help nurses balance their work and be a perfectionist.

OT and post OT scenarios:

From arranging everything required in OT to timely checkups and providing prescribed medications post-OT, nurses take extensive care of the patients. With access to patient healthcare records, nurses can be prepared with the procedures and every individual patient's requirements for the day.

User Interface:

Healthcare software has an easy-to-understand user interface allowing nurses to complete tasks right from one place. Along with accessing patient health records, nurses can send e-prescriptions to the pharmacy, access patient test records from laboratories for procedures, and update the amount of inventory available.

Healthcare Solutions for Owners:

Owners ensure the smooth and progressive running of the organization. They are more concerned about the quality of experience, costs, and revenue. Now, how are healthcare solutions an investment for them?

Cost and Revenue:

Most healthcare software has real-time analytical dashboards showing weekly, monthly, half-yearly, or even yearly performance and revenue of the organizations in a snap of the fingers. These features help in quick decision-making and dissolve the need for a special team to combine data.

Efficiency:

By implementing healthcare software, considerable parts of the workflow get automated, reducing stress in work, chances of manual error, and patient turnaround time. With lesser weight, employees tend to work seamlessly faster, and clearer, and attend to patients better.

With the increase in data in the healthcare industry, it's easy for organizations to get chaotic if data is not arranged, secured, and handled properly. Healthcare solutions do not just benefit one division of the hospital/clinic but all the divisions and make data management easy. The various advanced features and modules make sure all the activities are seamlessly carried out, making work easier and less stressful, check out how you can successfully implement a healthcare solution to your organisation!

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