Digitalization of Travel
Adel Eldin, MD FACC FACP, MBA, GGA
Board Certified Cardiologist, Founder/CEO Pronto Care and Florida Medical Tourism, Global Healthcare Leader,Entrepreneur, Speaker, Consultant
Introduction
By offering mobile applications (apps) to meet ever-increasing consumer demands.
Various services including travel as the?mobile apps enable new innovative ways of
delivering travel services right from a smartphone?which can be a game changer for
travellers to know and use for their various needs.
Mobile health apps can provide secure communications, make payments, and offer flexibility
and convenience. More travelers use travel apps to help make plans to book a flight, a hotel,
and transportation. information on their phones by downloading the travel app.?
There is a definite shift in the culture of embracing?smart technology (with digitalization?of
travel) as most clients prefer that choice nowadays.
over in-person visits, especially during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond.
?Hospitality and Lodging can Offer Improved Hospitality Services for Travelers with a
Telemedicine Apps and Gain a Market Competitive Advantage, make payments, and offer flexibility and convenience.
More than half of smartphone users, get travel-related information on their phones by
downloading the app with a good potential for synchronizing.?
The benefits of Digitization?of Travel is here with a growing travel trend in the same way as
banking, shopping online, and medical services are well established. With an aging society
and with travel and tourism set to increase post-COVID-19, partnering with an onsite medical clinic the franchise could strongly benefit a hotel, resort, or spa.
Now, a medical App promoted by lodging properties allows a domestic or international
traveler with preexisting medical conditions, or with young children traveling to have
increased confidence and ease of mind when traveling. A medical App can tie into the
current health spas and wellness amenities of a resort. A medical App for guests has the
potential to become a unique competitive advantage for the lodging property. Background
Telemedicine is a way to access healthcare appointments with doctors, psychiatrists, or
nurses on the Internet using your phone or computer. These appointments are usually video
calls through an App or digital platform. With telemedicine apps, you can receive remote
healthcare services from a medical doctor without physically visiting their office.
Below are some things to look for in your search for medical Apps:
Online chat messaging
Email support
Telephone calls.
The idea of telemedicine is not to replace clinic visits with a doctor.
Instead, it should complement regular healthcare. People may use
telemedicine to:
-talk with a doctor and see if you need a physical appointment
-request or renew certain prescriptions for medications
-assess and treat minor health conditions
-access therapy and other mental health services
Additionally, many telemedicine apps are making strides to become
primary care providers for patients rather than for just acute or emergency visits
Telemedicine is growing in popularity and can provide benefits over traditional doctor visits.
people who work full-time may appreciate being able to use telemedicine appointments with
doctors outside of traditional business hours, including evenings and weekends. It may also
be more convenient for people with children who would otherwise need to find sitters.
Telemedicine also improves access to care for people in more remote areas, older
folks, and individuals living with disabilities. Additionally, it can be helpful for people who
frequently travel for tourism and hospitality. Also, for travelers who may forgotten their
medications. This saves the need for making an ER Trip, thus saving time, money, stress, and frustration.
Looking for and attending a telemedicine appointment from the comfort of your home or
your resort or hotel room is a far more tempting prospect. Technology trends are changing
the hospitality industry, with preferred self-service for travelers, thus incorporating
technology with daily operations. to optimize service efficiency, minimize human error, and improve the overall guest experience.
Thus, the role of technology in healthcare Hospitality is becoming increasingly
important and in increased demand post-COVID pandemic. ProntoCare App was made to
support the health and wellness needs of travelers!
Services such as self-check-in, digital payment, and mobile keys all increased by 66%
during the pandemic and are expected to continue to rise. The ProntoCare App can be
easily downloaded and used by travelers looking for health and wellness services before, during, and after their travel.
This proactive approach can help abort many unnecessary costly emergency room visits
and even hospitalizations by giving the appropriate care, instructions, and patient education
early. This service will be very much needed given the fact that most of the travelers are
senior citizens with chronic diseases with high demand for easily accessible healthcare to
give those guests peace of mind and put them at ease to enhance their travel and lodging experience.
In summary, everybody benefits from an App such as the ProntoCare App.
Growing tourism trends and statistics confirm that more senior citizens embrace technology
and are more comfortable using digital healthcare just like banking and shopping online the
recent Coronavirus Pandemic accelerated the digital transformation.
ProntoCare offers direct consumers hassle-free healthcare with big savings giving economic
challenges post-COVID addressing the Wellness of the guest through proper nutrition and
promoting a healthy lifestyle. ProntoCare takes a proactive role in testing for risk factors and
diagnosing to prevent and manage chronic diseases. ProntoCare is also offering a
convenient Telemedicine app to communicate with various providers delivering the best
care remotely with safety and ease, especially for our senior citizen population. So many
travelers will benefit from using the ProntoCare App which can be easily downloaded on your smartphone!
Diet-Specific Nutrition For Wellness!
Food is the fuel for our bodies and can be used as medicine to promote wellness, avoiding travel-associated illnesses by having diet-specific orders that match the specific health condition.
This will have an important impact on overall client/guest wellness. A well-balanced diet
provides the energy needed to stay active throughout the day. Nutrition is needed to help to
stay healthy and help prevent diet-related?illnesses. This is becoming increasingly?relevant
to the client/guest experience which has a direct effect on (the bottom-line) results in addition to
.
addition to name brand, location, and pricing. The majority of travelers with an extra discretionary?fund to spend at an advanced age and
high prevalence?of chronic diseases would thus explain the importance of providing the
appropriate nutrition services. Such as diabetes, heart disease, bone disease, high
cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, obesity, and weakened immunity.
Additionally, poor nutrition could be a reason for adversely?affecting mental well-being?causing low mood or depression.
Research has shown adherence to healthy or Mediterranean dietary patterns with high
consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes, and moderate intake of poultry
and dairy products is associated with a reduced risk of depression. Food with a high
glycemic index is associated with symptoms of depression. The inflammatory effects of high
trans-fat and refined carbohydrates have been proposed to be a mechanism through which
the Western diet could have detrimental?effects on brain health including cognitive decline
and mood disorders. Thus, decreasing the consumption of highly processed and refined
(junk) food will provide benefits to both physical health and psychological well-being.
On the contrary, the consumption of the?Mediterranean?diet has anti-inflammatory?effects.
Thus, combining healthy nutrition for travelers and technology by using the ProntoCare
App to facilitate clients/guests' diet-specific?nutrition for wellness as follows:
1. Guests with high blood pressure would be served a low-salt diet or better with a salt
Substitute).
2. Guests with heart disease and elevated cholesterol will be served a low-cholesterol diet.
3. Guests with kidney dysfunction would be served a low protein, low salt, low potassium
diet.
4. Guests with type 2 diabetes would be served a low-carbohydrate?diet.
5. Avoid using?(Artificial?sweeteners) in diabetic patients given the recent World Health
Organization (WHO) warning that Aspartame is linked to cancer.
6. Guests with gout, would avoid serving food with high Uric acid content to avoid acute
gout attacks.
In summary, using the mobile app ( ProntoCare) could provide an added advantage for
enhanced physical and mental health and wellness for travelers through optimal diet-specific nutrition!
With travel supporting services, Digital Health allows remote access for consults, follow, and
management of various illnesses as well as caring for chronic diseases, especially for
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immobile patients or those with transportation problems. Telemedicine would be a great tool
for connecting patients with their trusted providers on a 24/7 basis. Physicians should give
their important input in shaping Digital Medicine and its future success in improving access to effective healthcare delivery
They must be a part of the conversation and decision-making alongside the
traditional players including Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies.
Digital Medicine can help not only the immediate treatment but can predict and prevent
various diseases via root-cause analysis as well as triaging patients appropriately. For
example, high salt intake is associated with elevated blood pressure, especially in the
African American population as they seem to be more salt-sensitive. Similarly, regular intake
of (NSAIDs) non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs such as Motrin, Advil, Naproxen, and
Aleve will certainly lead to kidney damage, Gastritis, bleeding Ulcer, Congestive Heart
Failure, and salt and water retention.
Thus, avoiding the regular intake of these NSAIDs would prevent these costly and
devastating complications. Regular intake of steroids would cause Diabetes, fluid retention,
delayed wound healing, osteoporosis resulting in bone fractures, and a depressed immune
system to repeated infections. Avascular necrosis of the head of the femur which is a
serious complication occurs in those on chronic steroid therapy resulting in the collapse of
the head of the femur. Telemedicine is an important tool in device monitoring such as
pacemakers, defibrillators, implanted event monitors, etc. Digital Medicine will help in
various aspects of patient education.
Wellness, and Advocacy.?
Digital Medicine would be advantageous in answering?simple, nonemergent questions
through an online portal, chat window, by making an online appointment, or by using a
mobile APP.So, the role of Digital Medicine is to improve patient access, customer service,
compliance, and outcomes for lower healthcare costs. It was never intended to replace your
doctor. We have seen what happened with attempted driverless cars, it failed big times!
Supporting travel services with technology via Digital medicine and wellness services can
help reach remote and under-served areas due to the remarkable growth of Wireless
Technology with cell phones, GPS, WIFI, and tablet computers. These computers will be
connected via Networks that will allow sharing of hardware and software data. The data will
follow either path of high bandwidth or low bandwidth being wired or wireless. For example,
hospitals use fast T1 lines for moving images and use slow connections for e-mail service.
Basic input devices are required including pointing devices like Mouse, microphones,
and cameras along with scanning devices such as bar-code readers, magnetic ink
character recognition, optical character recognition, radio frequency identification
recognition, or radio frequency identification tags.
Telemedicine would be great for those who prefer quick convenient service without taking
time off work and driving down to a doctor's office Urgent Care or even the Emergency
Room to sit and wait for a long time to be seen and get hit with a big bill to pay!
Consumers are reminded to be careful about the authenticity of information and conflict
of interest on any website before using a specific site whether educational or commercial.
Interoperability is critical in making telemedicine meaningful and
effective in improving health outcomes and saving costs which is the ultimate goal.
Consumers insist on second opinions, especially when traveling for Medical or Wellness Tourism!
Second Opinion!
It is very important to help our patients who entrusted us with their Health to educate them about a second opinion.
A second opinion is important for patients who get confused by information overload if they try to navigate through a complicated process to come up with decisions that best serve their health interests.
A second opinion is mostly needed in the case of elderly patients living in?rural areas who
typically do not have a high level of sophistication to understand the entire process but need very simple explanations in easy language to understand by avoiding all complex medical terminology that patients do not know
For example, a client should seek a second opinion doing a major surgery such as coronary artery bypass surgery or other surgeries or treatments.?
So, the time?to seek a second opinion is when?the diagnosis is not certain, or the treatment is
risky or controversial. Also, when the trust in the care given by the treating doctor or the
facility?is lost.?Either the patient or their doctors should start searching online or via social media when guests?request a second opinion and patients should not feel as if they are cheating on their doctors when they get a second opinion. According to a study done at the Mayo Clinic, 88% of patients seeking a second opinion ended with either a change or modification of their treatment.
Plan!
The value of a second opinion is recognized by healthcare insurance companies that pay for
it and insist on a second opinion before starting any treatment.?To confirm diagnosis, and
choice of therapy, alleviate guest and families concerns, and ensure appropriate choice of
treatment is selected and concurred by the treating team. If the second opinion is not properly done!
Then all subsequent steps in the care plan will be negatively impacted and then you must
start all over again with additional mostly preventable costs and stress to patients and their families!
The need for a second opinion for medical tourism patients is even more critical because of
added challenges including patients going to travel to far places from home to seek medical
care for affordability and accessibility in different languages and environments. Hence, all
due diligence should be done before traveling (measure twice then cut once!). There are
additional factors beyond the good, advertised prices which include for example the reputation of the
institution,?level of training and clinical experience of the treating physician and successful
procedures as well as complication rates.
Moreover, we must advocate for patients to explore legal pathways in case of an adverse
event or a complication taking place to give the guests an additional layer of security, comfort, and peace of mind.
It all starts with meticulous planning to maximize the success of the Medical and Wellness
Travel experience and boost customer satisfaction and confidence in the quality of services
provided by honest, well-trained specialists to contact?and contract for medical tourism services.
Floridamedicaltourism.com is here to help and serve all medical and wellness tourism needs
including honest second opinions for inbound, outbound, and domestic clients globally!
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