Remote access to doctors should help more people to travel.
For all of its terrible consequences, the Covid pandemic does look set to have one dramatic positive effect on the future grey nomad lifestyle … it has turbocharged the advance of remote healthcare.
For many older travellers, one of the great ‘nuisances’ of life on the road is the constant need to stop or detour in order to visit medical practices to get ‘checked over’.
Now though, the speed of the development of new health technologies is catching even the experts by surprise … and taking remote medicine into the realms of science fiction.
In a new report commissioned by insurance giants, Allianz Partners, futurist Ray Hammond says the new reality is head-spinning, and the possibilities endless.
“The pandemic has performed a feat of social engineering on public health,” he said. “Previously resistant doctors and hesitant patients have been dragged into the future of remote medicine by Covid-19.”
As telehealth has boomed, dozens of pay-as-you-go apps have emerged, offering the opportunity for remote consultations with doctors.
For many Outback-travelling grey nomads, of course, this has been a huge boost … but the best may be yet to come.
Mr Hammond believes that, while today’s health technology includes devices that offer virtual snapshots of a patient’s vital signs, non-critical patients will soon be able to be treated remotely in a ‘virtual ward’ fitted with an array of on-body sensors including fingertip oximeters that measure blood oxygen levels.
Other sensors might detect and record pulse rates, temperature, sleep patterns, blood glucose levels, respiration levels and heart electrical activity. Patients with respiratory problems may even be able to use a wireless stethoscope which will allow doctors to listen to lung performance remotely.
“The long-touted ideas of ‘distributed hospitals’ or ‘virtual wards’ are now becoming reality,” Mr Hammond said.
The futurist believes that, unlike existing hospital equipment, remote patient technology will be wholly wireless and will transmit results via the networks to the ‘distant’ doctors and nurses.
He says that, as the virtual ward develops and more ‘hospital patients’ are treated in their own beds, other sensors and monitors will provide professional with additional information about the wellbeing of patients (and their carers).
“These wireless sensors will include mats which can detect changes in a patient’s gait, cameras for patient observation (with permission from patients and families), motion sensors, electric plug and switch sensors, door sensors, humidity sensors and ambient temperature sensors,” he said.
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