National Health IT week is a culmination of many different organizations, groups, associations, businesses and providers who are working to transform the health care industry on a global level. As the need for smarter, faster and better health care grows, so does the innovation and creativity surrounding medical care. Evidence of just how far we’ve come is all around us. For example, decades ago a patient with kidney disease would have been confined to a life in the hospital undergoing treatments and on 24-hour surveillance. Today, a kidney disease patient can live relatively easily and comfortably at home, with a dialysis machine and the proper home health care plan in place.
Lengthy hospital stays are becoming a symptom of the past. Providers have come to understand that patients can heal better at home and patients prefer the comfort of their own surrounding and loved ones. Even more dramatic is the fact that shorter hospital stays are saving lives. Every year nearly 48,000 people die from hospital-linked infections, killing three times more people than HIV each year.
Of course, it would be naive to say that technology is responsible alone for the trend in shorter hospitalizations and a greater quality of care at home. Medical research is working at an advance pace, largely due to funding and the race to combat fast-spreading viruses which quickly gain speed in a global economy. Yet technology certainly has its rightful place in our health care system. A vast variety of businesses – from pharmaceutical companies to medical device manufacturers – are all involved in the movement driving technology in medicine. From remote heart monitoring devices to insulin pumps, there is a collective mindset that brings providers, manufacturers, technology innovators and service providers together.
At Axxess, we feel it’s fitting that the theme of this year’s Health IT Week is One Vision, One Voice. As part of the home health and post-acute care industry, our technology is helping transform home health to a level never before seen. An unprecedented number of Americans – by the year 2020, more than 50 million – are driving an increasing demand for home health care.
Home health and post-acute medical providers need technology partners to help meet this demand. By partnering in their business process, and moreover, understanding their needs, software technology companies like Axxess are revolutionizing an industry. When Axxess began working with home health agencies to streamline and manage their business processes just under a decade ago, the industry was laden with cumbersome paper-work. Today, we see an industry transformed. Technology-driven, home care workers are using mobile devices to help treat and monitor patients daily. The antiquated, paper-driven industry has embraced new technology and is working faster, smarter and better because of it.
At Axxess, our voice and our vision have been consistent since our beginnings. We understand the ways technology is shaping our future and we look forward to working with more and more companies that have the same mindset and goals as ours. There couldn’t be a more exciting time to be a part of the health care industry and technology. Let’s keep working together to make both industries thrive.
