Blood Pressure and Technology Essay

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Technology in Medicine: Distant Medical Surveillance Technology for Diabetics in the Less Developed Area of Texas

An estimated 26 million Americans live with diabetes. When not properly treated, diabetes could be fatal as it occupies the seventh position on the list of major mortality causes and it is also a strong causative factor of renal failures, sight damage and clinical limb removals among Americans. Diabetes occurrences are approximately 17% higher in less developed areas. Ethnicity and race are also major factors in determining the risk of suffering from the disease as it affects the smaller factions more. Distant medical surveillance can be very helpful in acquiring daily data about a diabetic's sugar levels, dangerous signs, feeding habits and therapy devotion. This method could help patients take their medications appropriately. Even though certain patients could decide not to adhere to their treatments and thus render this technology useless, the group who get absorbed by work or other activities could find devices like unique alarm watches, pillbox timers, smart pill containers or automated pill dispensers quite helpful as it helps remind them to take their medications in time. This technology makes serious health disorders much easier to manage successfully for both the sufferer and the health workers. Home installed equipment such as pills, scales, blood pressure bracelets and pulse oximeters collect and transfer readings via an extremely guarded wireless system to physicians at a clinic. Equally, monitoring devices transfer blood sugar level information to a public powerful device via Bluetooth which sends this information to a confidential virtual store. Only those with clearance given by the patient in question will have access to this information. These supervisory devices are efficient in reading several kinds of information from the patient including weight, blood pressure and sugar levels etc. These readings could be very helpful as they help to ascertain if these technological devices are effective in enhancing treatment's efficacy on the patient, availability of medical intervention and general medical therapy.

Introduction

Distant medical surveillance technology can be defined as the use of technological devices to monitor the medical condition of a person 24/7. This technology doesn't deliver instant medical treatments but it makes provisions available for this if needed from a community health center or telehealth. Distant medical surveillance technology can be made to work together with telehealth carried out by family nurses or by illness management programs (Nangalia, Prytherch & Smith, 2010). When these tracking devices are used for bodily and other health parameters' checks by the patients themselves, "self-monitoring technology" should be the name to be used in this case. Distant medical surveillance technology as well as self-monitoring technology could sometimes be carried out via mobile gadgets and these forms of technology have a high importance when community-based care coordination (CCC) programs are to be carried out.

An estimated 26 million Americans live with diabetes. When not properly treated, diabetes could be fatal as it occupies the seventh position on the list of major mortality causes and it is also a strong causative factor of renal failures, sight damage and clinical limb removals among Americans (Greenwood, Young & Quinn, 2014). Personal discipline and endurance on the part of the patient is a key part of successful diabetes treatment and it could enhance instant relief from the comorbidities of diabetes. According to the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE), eating balanced diet, exercising regularly, tracking vital signs, dedicated medication use, productive lifestyle, healthy and safe living are the seven basic self-management abilities known as the AADE7 (Greenwood et al., 2014), that are crucial to influence general lifestyle changes that could help health outcome of diabetics.

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Importance of this Study

Diabetes occurrences are approximately 17% higher in less developed areas. Ethnicity and race are also major factors in determining the risk of suffering from the disease as it affects the smaller factions more. An investigation into the availability of proper diabetes training have revealed that minority races face more difficulty in accessing high quality training that agrees with their traditional beliefs (Helseth, 2014). For rural areas with characteristic long distance between homes and hospitals or clinics, lack of transport systems and a high number of the aged and low-class people with no personal transport means, home visits by medical personnel is the best and most effective choice.

As more people fall prey to the scourge of diabetes, ensuring everyone has access to necessary health care so as to cut down death and chronic illnesses should form the sole objective of those in charge. Diabetes therapy include interviews, clinical tests, self-management trainings and encouragement sessions all combined with basic health treatments for the normal problems associated with the disease (Hale, Bennett &Probst, 2010). Examinations based on national data have been carried out to monitor variations in the quality of diabetes treatment, especially among certain ethnic groups. Just a few studies have been carried out to research into how this treatment varies with respect to population living in rural communities. Rural dwellers are often left short of appropriate levels of basic health and specialist services (Balamurugan et al., 2009), a situation which could have adverse effects on the community's diabetics and even general health.

According to the ADA, it is advised that all diabetics take advantage of the Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME). DSME has been proved to be effective in enhancing the quality of lives of diabetics; nonetheless, examinations of DSME in the rural settlements have uncovered problems linked to the running and continuity of the program (Hale et al., 2010). How much these problems have affected the quality of care available to diabetics has not been thoroughly established.

Benefits of this Technology

Distant medical surveillance technology helps monitor the diabetic's glucose levels, signs of infection, eating habits and devotion to therapy 24/7. When implemented, this technology can immediately reduce the frequency of diabetes related conditions such as high blood glucose level. Other lasting benefits of this technology, which are dependent on the associated lifestyle change of the patient, are its ability to reduce the risk of diabetes' comorbidities including loss of sight, hypertension and serious renal problems (Hale et al., 2010). Furthermore, checking for physical disorders like foot swellings could reduce more critical medical conditions.

Distant medical surveillance technology helps increase devotion to regular medication use. Even though certain patients could decide not to adhere to their treatments and thus render this technology useless, the group who get absorbed by work or other activities could find devices like unique alarm watches, pillbox timers, smart pill containers or automated pill dispensers quite helpful as it helps remind them to take their medications in time. In some cases, the patient only gets a reminder and sometimes, the technology closes and opens the drug cabinet itself at preset times and then alerts the supervising family nurse of the removal of a tablet from the cabinet (Balamurugan et al., 2009). More developed systems that can confirm that the tablet was really swallowed are being developed though they….....

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