Since the onset of the COVID pandemic, digital health advancement has picked up the pace to make rapid progress in every area of medicine. Thankfully, at the height of the spread of COVID, healthcare was able to continue without missing a beat due to changes to things such as telehealth and a full embrace of digital health.
Today, doctors are more digital than ever, with 80% embracing health-related technology in their personal and/or professional lives. Sixty-two percent of physicians personally use health apps and 57% recommend them to their patients. The same goes for smartwatches with 41% personal use and 43% recommendations. Physicians also go digital by visiting healthcare sites to gather information with the most visited sites being UptoDate, Sermo, and WebMD.
Ninety percent of doctors are also using social media professionally. They communicate with other physicians, share videos with patients, repost messages for professional use, and post-professional updates. The most used sites are Google search, YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Currently, more than 1 in 4 doctors are high adopters of digital technology in their practice. These doctors treat patients with a different outlook. They are 211% more likely to recommend smart gym equipment, 200% more likely to recommend smartwatches, and 182% more likely to recommend fitness wearables. These doctors strongly believe that embracing digital health tech greatly improves patient care by enabling easy access to health information, enhancing remote monitoring care, and increasing patient engagement for better health outcomes. These doctors are also more likely to offer valuable digital health tools, such as online scheduling and in-office kiosks. Digital health is taking healthcare to the future.
