Chronic disease is a long-term, usually slowly progressive, a non-communicable disease that is not transmitted from person to person. More than 70% of deaths are due to these diseases. Treating chronic diseases “eats” from 50 to 80% of all health care costs worldwide. Chronic diseases are a severe challenge to modern society. Patients need constant medical support, but this is unrealistic given the shortage of medical personnel. There are different ways to solve a problem: somewhere pharmacists and nurses are trusted to keep “chronicles,” somewhere they rely on digital services, such as chronic care management.
The COVID-19 pandemic could only worsen these statistics, as routine medical care was not provided for a long time, and people were left alone with their symptoms.
However, even before the pandemic, medical care for chronic patients was episodic. It was carried out mainly during periods of exacerbation of the disease, without an individual comprehensive approach that considers the high level of complications and the presence of “comorbid” chronic conditions. The interaction between specialists of different profiles was carried out weakly, and there was practically no coordination in providing patients with medical, rehabilitation, and preventive care. The control of treatment during periods of remission of the disease and the implementation of the treatment plan also left much to be desired.
Little has been done for prevention, timely detection, and early treatment of the disease to maintain working capacity and optimal quality of life. Thus, the quality of medical care for chronically ill patients did not meet modern healthcare capabilities and regulated requirements.
Chronic care management (CCM) is a stand-alone class of software products designed to perform medical functions that can interact with other hardware medical equipment or devices but simultaneously exist independently.
Let’s describe some features of CCM:
According to various forecasts, by 2050, at least half of the people in developed countries will suffer from chronic diseases, which significantly increases the burden on the healthcare system and the cost of medical care.
CCM platforms work on better healthcare administration and delivery while reducing costs and improving healthcare outcomes. The software provides information that can help diagnose and treat patients and inform and manage staff.
Chronic care management has potential in the following areas of medicine:
CCM allows you to predict the risk of chronic diseases using algorithms, reduces the time from diagnosis to treatment, and provides personalized treatment plans for patients to give practitioners improved patient outcomes due to early verification of the diagnosis and, as a result, the correct treatment prescribed.
Chronic care management solutions are used with wearable sensors to collect vital health metrics and better manage the patient’s condition, identify triggers and receive guidance, and adjust drug dosages.
CCM allows health data to be tracked and treatments adjusted accordingly, allowing clinicians to develop more personalized treatments. It is essential to treat diseases such as diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, cancer, and many others.
Digital therapy solutions enable the prevention and treatment of adverse events in patients with various diseases, including feedback and direct contact between patients and their physicians; raising awareness and educating patients and caregivers; integrating clinical methods for assessing the patient’s condition used in the course of routine medical practice, as well as monitoring the situation of patients.
Chronic care management can help provide personalized treatment plans and reduce the waiting time from diagnosis to treatment for patients with severe illnesses. For example, cancer is not easy to diagnose, and often, when it is detected, many types of cancer are at an advanced stage. CCM devices may use algorithms capable of detecting anomalies that would otherwise go unnoticed by conventional diagnostics.
CCM can help patients better manage their condition by identifying triggers and providing real-time recommendations, from medication dosages to environmental conditions and physical activity. It can also help better overall patient adherence to treatment and, as a result, lead to better clinical outcomes.
Connected care systems make patients more accountable for doctor compliance and treatment decisions. With CCM, patients can monitor their activity or health status in real-time and seek medical attention when needed.
The software can accurately predict chronic disease risk using sophisticated algorithms and help guide clinical decision-making. Using CCM, clinicians can get a more holistic, real-time picture of a patient’s health, making more accurate recommendations for diagnosis and treatment.
CCM systems allow the collecting and processing of data from wearable devices and the detection of subtle abnormalities that could signal fundamental health problems. Using this information, doctors can refine their treatment regimens.
CCM tools help clinicians develop personalized treatment plans for patients with chronic conditions based on data collected by the software, such as blood glucose levels or cardiac enzymes.
Digital health can be defined as technologies that help improve medical care’s efficiency, making it more personalized and accurate.
Venture investment in digital healthcare in the world in 2021 set a record, increasing by 90%.
Telemedicine is a segment leader in growth rates (+133% in the first half of 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic). At the beginning of 2021, its penetration level in the world increased to 17 percent.
Telemedicine and CCM growth drivers:
The rise in chronic diseases is a severe problem for the health care system. Treatment of chronic diseases is one of the critical areas of the application of telemedicine software, as it allows doctors to control the process of treating patients more effectively.
The developed methods and algorithms for modeling, forecasting, and optimal control of dual dynamic processes make it possible to create intelligent support systems for doctors treating chronic diseases and managing health care and socio-economic structures at the level of regions and administrative districts.
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