Category Archives: Healthcare Application Development

The Integration of mHealth into Clinical Practice: Opportunities and Barriers

Mobile health or mHealth solutions are transforming the healthcare industry. From mobile applications that allow for remote monitoring and diagnosis to wearable devices that provide real-time data about a patient’s vital signs, mHealth is changing how we think about healthcare delivery.

According to recent research, the revenue of the global mHealth solutions market is estimated to be $119.5 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27% to reach a value of $395 billion by 2028.

While there are many potential benefits associated with integrating mHealth into clinical practice, there are also numerous barriers that must be overcome in order for these technologies to reach their full potential.

In this blog post, we will explore both the opportunities and challenges associated with incorporating mHealth into clinical practice.

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Opportunities 

Improved Patient Engagement: mHealth solutions can help patients become more engaged in their own healthcare by providing them with real-time access to their health data. Patients can use these tools to monitor their vital signs, track their medication adherence, and access educational resources. This can lead to improved health outcomes and reduced healthcare costs.

Remote Monitoring: With mHealth solutions, healthcare providers can make medical care more accessible for patients. The technology can be used to remotely monitor patients who have chronic conditions or are recovering from surgery, reducing the need for in-person visits and enabling healthcare professionals to intervene early if there are any concerns.

Enhanced Data Collection: mHealth solutions can enable healthcare professionals to collect more comprehensive data about patients’ health status. Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are one example of how mHealth can provide data-driven care. CDSSs use predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms to interpret data from multiple sources and offer meaningful insights and advice, allowing healthcare providers to be more efficient in their patient care. This data can be used to identify trends and patterns and to develop more personalized treatment plans.

Increased Efficiency: Healthcare professionals can streamline clinical workflows and reduce administrative burdens by incorporating mHealth solutions, which can enable them to focus more on patient care. For example, mHealth solutions can automate appointment scheduling, provide electronic prescription management, and reduce paperwork.

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Barriers

Privacy and Security Concerns:  The collection and use of patient health data by mHealth solutions raise significant privacy and security concerns. Healthcare providers must ensure that patient data is stored securely and in compliance with privacy regulations.

Lack of Standardization: The lack of industry standards for mHealth systems can make it difficult for healthcare providers to integrate various different technologies into their existing workflows. Without standardized data formats and protocols, it can be challenging to ensure interoperability and data accuracy.

Technical Challenges: The integration of mHealth solutions into clinical practice requires technical expertise and infrastructure. Healthcare providers need to have the necessary hardware, software, and network capabilities in order to effectively use mHealth solutions.

Resistance to Change: The integration of mHealth solutions into clinical practice requires a cultural shift. Healthcare professionals will have to embrace new ways of working. This can be challenging for healthcare organizations, particularly those already burdened with the challenges of less-than-adequate manpower and lengthy decision-making procedures.

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Overcoming Barriers

Invest in Infrastructure: Healthcare organizations should invest in the necessary infrastructure to support the integration of mHealth solutions. This may include upgrading hardware and software systems, investing in secure network capabilities, and training staff on how to use new technologies.

Develop Standards: Establishing and adhering to standards for mHealth systems can help to ensure data accuracy and compliance with privacy regulations. Healthcare organizations should look to develop standard protocols and data formats that are compatible with their existing systems. This process can involve working with government agencies and other stakeholders to establish guidelines.

Educate Healthcare ProfessionalsEncouraging healthcare professionals to embrace new technologies can be the key to the successful integration of mHealth solutions. Educating them on the benefits of leveraging mHealth solutions in clinical practices, and training them on using it effectively is essential.

Collaborate with PatientsEstablishing open communication with patients and involving them in the process of integrating mHealth solutions into clinical practice can help to build trust and increase patient engagement. Encourage healthcare professionals to engage patients in discussions about their care.
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Conclusion

The integration of mHealth into clinical practice offers many opportunities for improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. However, there are also significant barriers that must be overcome in order to make the most of these benefits. As technology continues to advance, it is important that healthcare organizations remain agile and adaptive, ready to embrace new tools and services that can improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.

At Mindfire Solutions, we understand the challenges associated with integrating mHealth solutions into clinical practices. Our team of experienced developers is committed to helping healthcare organizations navigate the complexity and uncertainty of introducing new technologies in their workflows. We are dedicated to developing robust, secure, and intuitive mHealth solutions that meet the needs of your healthcare organization.

Take a peek at our expertise to know how we can assist you to take your services to the next level.

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The Impact of Telemedicine on Healthcare Delivery

HealthIT Solutions

Telemedicine is a rapidly growing field transforming how healthcare is delivered. It involves using telecommunication and information technologies to provide medical services and expertise remotely. Telemedicine is not a new concept, but its widespread adoption was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a report from a reputed source , despite the ongoing global geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainties, the global telemedicine services industry is anticipated to expand from $103.06 billion in 2022 to $262.33 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 18.8%.

The above figures suggest that telemedicine is becoming more widely accepted, with insurance companies and government-regulated healthcare programs increasingly including telemedicine services in their coverage plans. As a result, governments are urging companies to modify their policies to incorporate telemedicine services into their schemes, recognizing the growing importance of this method of healthcare delivery.

The underlying concepts

The telemedicine services market encompasses a range of remote medical services, including teleneuropsychology, telenursing, telepharmacy, and telerehabilitation services, along with any related goods sold by the service provider. It leverages video chat, phone calls, and text messaging to provide medical services covering physical examinations and health concerns consultations.

The telemedicine concept is already followed extensively in economically-strong markets, including Asia-Pacific, North America, South America, the Middle East, Africa, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. In 2022, North America emerged as the largest market for telemedicine services, with the Asia Pacific region coming in second.

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Types of Telemedicine Services

There are various telemedicine services, including web-based, cloud-based, and on-premises.

  • Web-based telemedicine services typically involve using a web browser to access an online platform for virtual consultations with healthcare providers.
  • Cloud-based telemedicine services, on the other hand, leverage remote servers to store and manage patient data, offer remote consultations, and provide access to various medical tools and resources.
  • On-premises telemedicine services refer to the delivery of remote healthcare services by healthcare providers using telecommunication and information technologies within the physical premises of a healthcare facility like a hospital or clinic.

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Advantages of Telemedicine: Improving Healthcare Delivery

Telemedicine offers several advantages that can help healthcare providers improve healthcare delivery. Here are some of the key advantages

  • Increased access to healthcare

Telemedicine allows healthcare providers to deliver medical services to patients who might otherwise have difficulties accessing care, such as those living in rural or remote areas or patients with mobility issues or transportation challenges..

  • Improved patient outcomes

Telemedicine can facilitate early detection of health conditions by providing timely access to medical care. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in providing personalized monitoring of chronic conditions and improving patient outcomes by enabling more data-driven care. AI can help in identifying patterns and predicting health issues before it intensifies, which can lead to early detection and treatment.

  • Cost savings

Telemedicine can help reduce healthcare costs by reducing the need for in-person visits, avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations, and improving medication adherence and disease management.

  • Convenience and flexibility

Patients can access medical care through telemedicine from the convenience of their own homes or workplaces, saving them time on travel and reducing the need to take time off work or school.

  • Increased efficiency

Telemedicine can help healthcare providers increase efficiency by enabling them to see more patients in less time, reducing wait times, and streamlining administrative tasks like medical record management and appointment scheduling.

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Limitations of Telemedicine: Challenges to Overcome

Healthcare providers considering telemedicine services should be aware of the potential limitations and challenges that come with it. Here are some of the key challenges to overcome:

  • Technical Issues

One of the biggest challenges of telemedicine is technical issues such as poor internet connection, equipment failure, and software malfunctions. These issues can result in disrupted communication and delays in medical care, potentially compromising patient safety.

  • Privacy and Security Concerns

Telemedicine raises privacy and security concerns, particularly regarding the storage and transmission of patient health information. Healthcare providers must ensure that telemedicine platforms follow the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other regulations to protect patient privacy.

  • Limited Physical Examination

Telemedicine may not allow healthcare providers to conduct a comprehensive physical examination of patients, which can limit their ability to diagnose and treat certain conditions. For instance, some conditions may require a hands-on approach to diagnose and treat effectively.

  • Lack of Patient-Provider Relationship

Telemedicine may not provide the same personal connection between patients and healthcare providers as in-person visits. This can limit the ability of healthcare providers to establish a strong patient-provider relationship, which is crucial for effective medical care.

  • Inability to Handle Emergencies

Telemedicine may not be able to handle medical emergencies such as cardiac arrest or severe trauma, which require immediate and specialized medical attention. Patients in need of emergency medical care must seek medical attention in person.

  • Unequal Access to Technology

Unequal access to technology can limit the use of telemedicine, particularly among low-income and rural populations. Lack of access to the internet and appropriate devices can create disparities in healthcare access.

  • Licensing and Reimbursement

Telemedicine is subject to licensing and reimbursement regulations, which can vary by state and insurance provider. This can create challenges for healthcare providers in delivering telemedicine services and obtaining payment.

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Conclusion

Telemedicine offers several advantages in improving healthcare delivery, from increased access to healthcare to increased efficiency. However, healthcare providers must overcome telemedicine challenges to provide high-quality services to their patients. To overcome these limitations, healthcare providers can invest in reliable technology and collaborate with subject matter experts to make the most of this technology.

Mindfire Solutions is a software development company that has been assisting healthcare providers for 15+ years to better their services with the help of cutting-edge technologies. Our team specializes in modern healthcare tech stacks and provides custom solutions that enable stakeholders to optimize their workflows and enhance patient care outcomes.

Visit Mindfire Solution to learn more about us.

 

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Adoption of Cloud Computing in Healthcare to Improves Patient Care Coordination

The cloud has revolutionized the way we live and work. It has brought about a new era of flexibility and convenience, allowing us to access information and collaborate with others from anywhere in the world.

According to a Gartner survey, global spending on cloud services is projected to reach over $482 billion this year (2022). The numbers are much higher than those recorded last year, i.e., $313 billion.

Now, healthcare providers are taking advantage of this technology to improve patient care coordination. Adoption of Cloud Computing in Healthcare with Cloud-based applications can help healthcare organizations manage patients more effectively, share important data in a secured manner, and reduce costs.

Let’s first get on with the basics of cloud computing and move on to the benefits of cloud computing in healthcare.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. 

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services). This technology allows organizations to quickly scale up or down as needed and pay only for the resources they use.

It has many advantages over traditional on-premise IT infrastructure. With cloud computing, businesses can be more agile and responsive to change because they can provision new resources in minutes or hours instead of weeks or months.

Cloud computing offers greater scalability and enables businesses to scale up or down as they please, without having to make huge capital investments as they are required to pay only for the resources they use.

Cloud Computing in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is in a state of flux. With the ever-changing landscape of regulations, the increasing costs of care and the shift to value-based reimbursement models, healthcare organizations are looking for ways to cut costs and improve efficiency. One way they’re doing this is by adopting cloud-based solutions.

Cloud computing has already transformed many industries, and healthcare is next on the list. By moving to the cloud, healthcare organizations can reduce IT costs, improve patient care, and drive innovation.

Let’s look at how cloud computing is changing healthcare for the better.

  • Reducing IT Costs

One of the biggest benefits of adoption of cloud computing in healthcare is that it can help healthcare organizations reduce their IT costs. With on-premises solutions, organizations have to pay for hardware, software, maintenance, and support. But with cloud-based solutions, they only have to pay for what they use.

Additionally, cloud providers often offer discounts for long-term contracts or for paying upfront. As cloud providers handle maintenance and upgrades, healthcare organizations can further reduce costs.

  • Improving Patient Care 

Another benefit of cloud computing in healthcare is that it can help improve patient care. By moving to the cloud, healthcare organizations can improve collaboration between care team members, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes. 

In addition, patients are increasingly expecting more personalized and convenient care. And with the help of cloud-based solutions like telemedicine and patient portals, they’re getting it.

These solutions give patients 24/7 access to their health information and allow them to book appointments, refill prescriptions, and more from the comfort of their homes.

  • Improving Patient Experience 

Doctors and hospitals now have the ability to increase patient engagement and provide them with anywhere, anytime access to their medical data, test results, and even doctor’s notes thanks to adoption of cloud computing in healthcare. This gives patients more power and control, as well as increasing their knowledge of their medical conditions. Furthermore, because doctors can access the history of medical records, it provides a new level of safety for patients, preventing them from being overprescribed or avoiding unnecessary testing. 

  • Faster Deliver of Time- Critical Medical Services & Impact of Covid19 

Covid19 proved to be a powerful driver of rapid digital transformation across industries. Cloud computing in healthcare is cost-effective and quick to deploy, among other benefits that can be extremely useful, particularly during a pandemic. In many ways, the year 2020 has been unprecedented. Time was critical in combating the pandemic and constructing new hospitals, releasing the vaccine onto the market, and arranging a safe method of mass testing. Cloud computing should be used to help bring important technological solutions to market faster for Time – Critical Medical Services.

  • Data Security and Privacy 

Security and Privacy of patient data are the two most important factors that matter to healthcare providers and payers or for that matter any other healthcare stakeholder looking at leveraging software systems. All reputed cloud services providers undertake the required measures to ascertain that vulnerability of patient data to potential breach is either negative or as negligible as possible. It is, however, a moving target and it is advisable to hire the services of a reliable and experienced tech solution provider to address this concern while adopting cloud solutions.

  • Implementation of AI/ML & Access to Analytics for Data Driven Decisions 

Large datasets of patient information from ePHI, IoT devices, and consumer health applications are processed by cloud platforms. Technology can help to promote healthier patient behavior, improve disease detection rates, and aid in advanced diagnosis and decision making. Through data insights and analytics, AI/ML enables healthcare professionals to make data-driven decisions. It has the potential to personalize medicine, improve care, and deliver real-time information to patients and staff. Data from AI/ML is being used to drive innovation. Healthcare providers make better decisions with adopting cloud computing in healthcare, which improves service operations and increases hospital efficiency. Automated analytics provide significant benefits for patient scheduling, background checks, and managing all associated medical records. Data interoperability benefits research programmes by allowing researchers to quickly collect statistics from a diverse range of patients.

Cloud Computing Market & Opportunities in Health Care

Cloud Computing Makes Patient Care Coordination Easier

There is no denying that technology has revolutionized the healthcare industry. One of the most significant changes has been the move from paper-based systems to electronic health records (EHRs). This shift has resulted in more efficient and coordinated patient care.

However, as anyone who has ever dealt with a complex health issue knows, coordinating care can still be a major challenge. Many players are involved in the care of a single patient, including doctors, nurses, specialists, pharmacists, and others. It is difficult to track all the treatments and medications a patient takes. 

That’s where cloud computing comes in.

  • Cloud computing helps in storing and accessing data online. EHRs are often stored in the cloud, allowing different patient care team members to access them from anywhere at any time. This is a major advantage in coordinating care, as it allows everyone to see a patient’s complete medical history real time and in one place.
  • In addition to making information more readily available, cloud computing also enables sharing with ease large files such as x-rays or MRI scans. This is especially important when patients consult multiple specialists or receive care at different facilities.
  • In the past, patients would have to provide their records separately to each consulting physician, which was both time-consuming and inconvenient. With cloud computing, patients can give their doctors access to their records with just a few clicks.
  • Cloud computing in healthcare also makes it easier for doctors to communicate with each other. Earlier, if two doctors needed to discuss a patient’s diagnosis or treatment plan, they would have to do so by phone or fax (if they were lucky enough to have access to each other’s contact information). With secure cloud messaging platforms, doctors can easily send referrals, consult on cases, and request test results without ever having to pick up the phone.

Conclusion

Cloud computing in healthcare enables the doctors and other members of a patient’s care team to communicate and collaborate easily, resulting in more coordinated and efficient patient care. Adoption of cloud computing in healthcare also helps in implementing latest technologies like AI/ML.

If you are stuck with on premise healthcare software systems, now is the time to switch. Not only will you be able to improve patient care coordination, but you’ll also reap all the other benefits that a cloud infrastructure can provide you, leading to increased productivity and decreased costs.

If you are looking for a software technical partner who can assist you in developing custom solutions that are cloud-based, or in cloud migration, please reach out to us. With decades of experience, we have the necessary resources to help you achieve your goals. Connect with our experts today.

 

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AI in critical care

Role of AI in Chronic Care Management

Effectively managing chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, and several others have been one of the biggest challenges for healthcare providers worldwide. According to a study, chronic diseases are responsible for 70% of deaths and about 50% of the disease burden globally. Owing to this, we will discuss how AI in chronic care management can change these numbers.

As the pandemic unleashed a global health crisis, many countries faced a shortage of healthcare professionals and medical resources. This caused several hurdles for patients with chronic conditions to get treatment at the right time. Such conditions forced chronic patients to adapt to remote and digital treatment, which is the new normal in the current world.

For medical professionals to deliver quality remote healthcare, it has become essential to leverage fast-emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Both AI and ML have already shown how they can significantly improve the efficiency of operations in various other industries like e-commerce, manufacturing, automotive, etc. In this article, we will take a look at the role of AI in Chronic Care Management (CCM).

Key Benefits of Chronic Care Management

Before we understand the importance of AI in Chronic Care Management, let us look at some key benefits of Chronic Care Management: 

  • Chronic Care Management or CCM offers an organized approach to dealing with chronic conditions, making the process more coordinated for patients as well as the healthcare provider.
  • Healthcare providers can build long-term relationships with patients through their CCM services, which can result in increased revenue.
  • It can prevent unnecessary visits to partitioners.
  • Researchers have proved that CCM can offer quality healthcare to patients at a lower cost.

What is the Role of AI in Critical Care Management?

Here is how AI in chronic care management can turn around the situation:

●     Medical Data Analysis

An extensive medical data set will be required to utilize AI in chronic care management at its full potential. In today’s digital world, it can be easily gathered throughout the patient life cycle via mobile applications, IoT devices, and patient portal software. An Al-based algorithm can analyze this pool of data and generate new insights and opportunities for both patients and medical professionals in CCM. This can streamline the overall chronic care management processes.

●     Prognosis and Prevention of the Disease

One aspect of CCM is to prevent diseases from happening. With the help of AI, practitioners can identify the choric disease to which the patient is susceptible. This allows the doctors to take the correct preventive measures and circumvent the chronic condition.

In a study published by Yannis Paschalidis in Harvard Business Review, healthcare professionals were able to forecast hospitalizations due to diabetes and heart disease a year in advance using machine learning and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) with an accuracy of 82%. 

●     Diagnosis of Diseases

Many recent studies have proved that AI can also be indispensable when it comes to the diagnosis of diseases. Al-algorithms can easily detect diseases based on data points like medical imagery, ECG data, patients’ demography, and their medical history. Such developments have led to time and cost-effective CCM service. It also has significantly improved remote diagnosis.

●     Treatment

The healthcare data can be used to create AI/ML models that can assist physicians in medication modeling and treatment suggestions. These models can be further applied to suggest appropriate dosage and treatment plans for the patient.

A personalized plan and treatment for individual patients can also be created by AI. The personalized treatment can enable clinicians to intervene before a patient’s condition becomes critical, making CCM more effective.

Recently, a company named IBM Watson has achieved some remarkable results by utilizing AI in the field of oncology. The organization performed genetic data analysis and was successfully able to identify the rare secondary leukemia caused by myelodysplastic syndromes.

●     Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

With an AI-powered CCM, healthcare professionals can constantly monitor a patient’s vitals like blood pressure, pulse rate, temperatures, etc., from the comfort of their home. The AI can also send an alert to health professionals if there is any sudden or critical change in the vitals of a patient.

●     Virtual Assistant

Chronic diseases generally last for a lifetime. As the patient gets older, it gets difficult for them to keep track of medication and appointments, which causes disturbance in their chronic care management. In such cases, an AI-powered virtual assistant can come in handy for the patient. It can assist them by ensuring drug adherence and also monitor their vital data.

For example, a Meditech company created AI-embed nurse avatars that send notifications to the patient each morning for a check-in routine, record their vitals, and sends alerts for timely intake of medicine.

Another aspect of chronic care management is measuring and managing the patient’s chronic pain. Here again, AI can assist in detecting chronic pain by monitoring the facial muscle movements of patients who are unable to self-report the pain to their physicians.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence can offer actionable insights to guide clinical decisions and allow physicians to diagnose, treat and handle chronic conditions remotely, thus making chronic care management more efficient, accessible, and affordable.

That’s why many healthcare organizations have begun to utilize AI in their chronic care management services. If you are also looking to leverage AI to improve your chronic care management, you will need to hire or work with people who have relevant expertise and skill set.

Mindfire Solutions is an IT-service provider that has worked with several healthcare organizations over the years to provide customized healthcare tech solutions that are highly cost-effective, secure, and scalable. Visit Mindfire Solutions to learn more about us.

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Vulnerabilities of IoMT

Top 6 Vulnerabilities of IoMT devices to look out for

The internet of medical things (IoMT) is an innovative solution transforming the healthcare industry. With IoMT, healthcare providers can gather data from various medical devices and create a comprehensive view of a patient’s health. The solution enables healthcare professionals to offer more proactive patient care and better treatment outcomes while reducing expenses.

That’s why many healthcare providers are keen on leveraging the internet of medical things. In 2020, as the pandemic caused global turmoil and remote solutions became a necessity, the global market capitalization for the internet of medical things (IoMT) reached a value of USD 41.7 billion.

By the time 2028 arrives, the global internet of medical things (IoMT) market size is projected to be worth USD 187.6 billion, growing at a CAGR of 29.5%.

While there are several benefits of utilizing the IoMT, there are also certain risks associated with the technology. In this blog, we will bring forward some of the vulnerabilities of IoMT.   

Vulnerabilities of IoMT

Here are some of the major vulnerabilities of IoMT:

Multiple Entry Points

The interconnectedness of medical devices makes IoMT a groundbreaking solution for healthcare; however, it also makes systems more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Medical devices are difficult to patch. As the number of devices and sensors increases, the possible entry points for attacks also increase. Even a single point of a breach can be catastrophic for the entire system.

That’s why it becomes essential to deploy anti-malware mechanisms to ensure that devices are not susceptible to attacks.

Privacy and Security Issues

IoMT systems gather large amounts of data from patients. This data is often sensitive, and if it falls into the wrong hands, it could be used for malicious purposes. For example,  passive attacks such as traffic analysis can allow attackers to gather confidential information on patients like their medical conditions, medications, and treatments.

Active attacks are also possible. For example, an attacker could use a denial-of-service (DoS) attack to disable a device or system, preventing it from being used. Such incidents can cause serious consequences for patients who rely on the device or system for care.

To protect patient privacy and security, healthcare organizations must implement strong security measures like encryption of stored data and data-in-transit.  

Poor Authentication

Most healthcare devices are not equipped with proper authentication mechanisms. Research that aimed to understand the vulnerabilities of IoMT devices observed that many healthcare organizations adhered to default passwords and settings, which were available on the manual online. 

This makes it easy for unauthorized individuals to access the network and tamper with it. In such cases, cybercriminals can remotely take control of devices and use them to carry out hostile activities.

Therefore, your organization should have security protocols such as Multi-Factor Authentication in place to improve the safety of IoMT devices.

Unsecured Internet Connection 

Usually, healthcare enterprises run IoMT systems on the same network which is used for managing their infrastructure. This not only poses a threat to your IoMT system but also to your entire organization’s infrastructure.

Hence, it is advisable to segment the company’s network. Operate IoMT devices on a separate network. This way, even if there is any breach, the damage will be limited to a small portion of your entire network, which can be countered quickly.

Lack of Visibility 

Another major issue with IoMT is the lack of visibility into the network. With so many devices and sensors collecting data, it becomes difficult to track all the activity occurring within the system. According to a study, about 80% of IoMT devices are used frequently in a month. Therefore, it is difficult for the IT team to identify anomalies and potential threats.

Outdated Systems

A study has shown that many healthcare organizations leveraging IoMT are still using outdated versions of operating systems that are not designed to deal with modern cybersecurity threats. This leaves systems vulnerable to sophisticated attacks that can easily bypass traditional security measures.

Even if the organization is up to date with its operating systems, it is equally important to update the devices in the IoMT system regularly. 

Conclusion

IoMT systems offer several transformational benefits to the healthcare organization. However, healthcare providers also need to be aware of these vulnerabilities and take steps to mitigate them.

One of the ways to secure your IoMT system is to conduct risk assessments, implement security measures, and keep up with the latest trends in cybersecurity. By doing so, you can ensure that your IoMT system is protected and can be used to improve patient care.

As testing any system can be an overwhelming task, you can also collaborate with an experienced IT service provider to reduce the workload.

Mindfire Solutions is one of the leading agencies in the IT sector that has assisted several world-renowned organizations with IoT Testing. With our team of industry experts, we offer solutions that are tailored to your organization. If you are also looking to test your IoT or IoMT system, visit Mindfire Solutions to learn more about our services.

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AI for healthcare

How Do AI Applications Improve Healthcare And Wellness?

The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the existing healthcare infrastructure. It has been a rude reality check for clinical administrators worldwide. Now, as the contagion subsumes, the persisting rise in the global burden for non-communicable ailments like lifestyle disorders is likely to keep medical practitioners on their toes in the days ahead. With this, the demand for preventive measures is increasing. By using AI for healthcare, we may step ahead in this crisis.

A Looming Crisis In Healthcare

Today, the demand for preventative intervention is skyrocketing. But limited growth in clinical ranks indicates an ever-widening talent gap with cascading implications. WHO assessed a projected shortfall of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030. This gap is likely to be manifested primarily in low and lower-middle-income geographies. Medvocation, in one of its recent studies, found that nearly 44% of doctors worldwide are already breaking under the immense workload and are unable to live happy and healthy lives.

The existing state of affairs can portend a crippling impediment as the global population ages. Reactive healthcare becoming more costly adds to the worries of the patients and clinical professionals.

AI For Healthcare: Reimagining Wellbeing

Fortunately, advancements in data-driven technologies like AI and machine learning have brought preventive medicine much closer to high-risk and healthy individuals. It has improved the possibilities of self-care and wellness like never before. For instance, today, AI applications can monitor every heartbeat and predict congestive heart failure (CHF) with remarkable accuracy. It permits the prospective patient a significant head start in seeking expert advice long before ending up on a gurney in an ICU.

Due to this the global market for intelligent self-care medical devices ($13 billion in 2020) is expected to reach a valuation of more than $30 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of over 8%.  

AI in Medicine: A Comprehensive Approach

For some years, AI-powered applications have made significant inroads across various clinical procedures and treatments, from automating medical front desk services, drug repurposing, vaccine development, building Smart EHR systems, and improving pathology to successfully predicting drug reactions. Today, at least 90% of healthcare establishments have an AI strategy. Indeed the benefits are substantial as cognitive computing allows practitioners to delegate repetitive tasks like clinical data extraction, assimilation, and report creation to the machines. Effectively AI for healthcare professionals can help with better decisions and focus on what they do best: care for their patients. 

However, the role of AI on the demand side of the story is equally spectacular! Proper self-care, yet elusive, is now feasible as wearable devices embedded with machine intelligence enable individuals to listen to their vital signs better. As algorithms operating on the edge get more intelligent and more emphatic, they will only expand the chances of proactively and precisely diagnosing physiological parameters and assessing the likelihood of acute events for individuals with chronic conditions. It, in turn, will preempt health risks, transform clinical deliveries and ease the pressure on the existing medical infrastructure worldwide.

Factors Fueling The Influx Of AI For Healthcare

The trend is in no way isolated and wholly synced with the cognitive technology maturity curve. Several factors advocate making personal devices like Blood Glucose monitors, Insulin Pumps, Sleep Apnea Devices, Blood Pressure Monitors, and Smart Watches intelligent enough to improve self-care and wellness for their owners. None is more telling than the dichotomy that although there has been an explosive growth of health data collected institutionally in recent years, it may still fall short in enabling patient outcomes.

For instance, an asthma patient typically visits the physician every three months and spends over 2,100 hours in between when the symptoms are not actively monitored, undermining realistic assessment. Now, data continuously ingested through smart devices can bridge this gap. Other factors include:

– Advancement in cloud computing: 

The computational power available for training AI models and algorithms has grown exponentially in recent years with the GPU revolution. Today, with easy access to bare metal servers from cloud infrastructure providers, it is easy to configure systems for running high-performance healthcare workloads.

– Development of Deep Neural Networks: 

The development of Artificial Neural Networks today is supplementing ML capabilities, providing for much better and more precise modeling. ML procedures like Capsule Neural Networks and Transfer Learning can transform how ML models are built and deployed, leading to far more accurate predictions even when trained with limited datasets. It will indeed make self-care medical devices smarter and more cost-effective.

– Shift in the healthcare delivery philosophy: 

As AI systems become more readily available, institutions worldwide are unmistakably considering how care is delivered and how precious healthcare resources and infrastructure are utilized. For instance, the National Institute of Health in the United Kingdom has launched an initiative to encourage the use of AI for healthcare of individuals to self-diagnose the onset of chronic conditions. The broader objective is to eliminate unnecessary outpatient visits and save operating costs, optimizing the resources available to the frontline care workers.

AI In Self-care: Use Cases

This research paper published by Nature.com manifests the overall apprehensions of patients around the role of AI in healthcare. However, advancements in cognitive technologies can bring in early and reliable insights and even formulate an effective response to some of the most prevalent chronic health conditions worldwide. These includes: 

– Diabetes: 

While the retroactive insights on blood sugar levels are currently derived from lab tests like A1C and self-service glucometer readings, AI-enabled devices can completely upend the diabetes treatment pathway. Intelligent insulin pumps can monitor blood glucose levels and other health metrics in real-time and auto-administer appropriate insulin doses based on the patient’s health condition and symptoms.

– Hypertension: 

Collecting blood pressure readings periodically through cuff-based devices is only half the game, pending further diagnosis. However, with Smart wearable devices connected to the cloud, blood pressure data can be assimilated with multimodal data sets like genomics and behavioral to pinpoint anomalies and preempt acute instances.

– Asthma:  

Asthma patients must regularly visit clinics for pulmonary function tests. They are monitored for environmental variables like air quality and moisture profile that can adversely impact their health. AI algorithms can extrapolate heart rate and blood oxygen level data from pulse oxymeters. Utilizing other pointers like pathophysiological analysis, natural history, seasonality, phenotypes, genetics, environmental monitoring, disease biomarkers, etc., AI predicts the possibilities of an asthma attack.

– Congestive Heart Failure (CHF): 

Conventional detection for CHF is done through a clinical diagnosis like ECG and studying factors like hereditary prevalence and lifestyle choices. Nevertheless, AI algorithms can accurately predict heart health through raw electrocardiograms to predict the possibilities of CHF, almost with 100% accuracy.

– Depression: 

Screening for mental health conditions depends on subjective evaluations to detect the root cause and respond to symptoms. However, AI algorithms can eliminate this subjectivity and clinical bias from the equation by evaluating symptoms through facial expressions, voice patterns, and online habits. Moreover, they can objectively assess treatment progress by interpreting brainwave profiles unique to patients with depression.

Final Thoughts

Bringing AI to improve the state of self-care and wellness is an idea whose time has come. Cognitive technologies can play a pivotal role in preventing catastrophic health events and saving lives. However, considering the wide range of variables and the risks involved, expert implementation becomes as crucial as the technology to ensure the first-time-right outcomes. Therefore alongside investment in technology, it becomes a strategic necessity to find an experienced technology partner who can aptly demonstrate the viability of self-care through AI.

Mindfire Solutions is one such leader in AI/ML, well-acclaimed in the global health tech market. Get in touch with one of their AI consultants to discover how the company simplifies self-care and wellness for millions worldwide.

 

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healthcare consumerism

Disruption Set in Motion by Healthcare Consumerism

Healthcare Consumerism and its Implications:

Healthcare consumerism is the health industry’s shift towards a more value based care; it is a movement for a more cost effective and efficient delivery of healthcare services. It connotes the patient taking control of their health and wellness by managing all aspects of one’s healthcare landscape – including health benefits, medical insurance and retail health. In short, the goal of healthcare consumerism is to enable patients to become wholly involved in their healthcare decisions.

The Covid 19 pandemic has accelerated changes in consumer behaviour, which in turn has deeply influenced the health ecosystem. There have been major implications such as the adoption of a more in-home and online engagement vis-a-vis a more physical one. With a sharp decline in various parameters of mental health and physical health during the pandemic, there is an increasing chance that tele-calling and digital engagement will propel healthcare consumerism even further. This will enable making it a more permanent part of the way people approach their health.

How the Healthcare Ecosystem is under Pressure:

The disruption of health consumerism is however, not without any pressure. The average customer is accustomed to the growing advancement in digital technology across all sectors in life. From banking (digital wallets, mobile pay), entertainment (Netflix), retail (Amazon) to travel (Uber), everything is a click away. Hence, there is a growing pressure on the healthcare ecosystem in a few critical ways:

1.Cost-effectiveness: With more innovations, consumers are expecting affordability in services. However, medical breakthroughs never come cheap and the longer a person lives, the higher is usually the cost of care.

2. Transparency: Consumers are often withheld from the final cost of the treatment, until it has already been incurred. With health insurance, cost breakups continue to create further confusion.

3. Access: Healthcare service providers haven’t been quick on the uptake when it comes to making care accessible and convenient. Issues surrounding reimbursements still create confusion for consumers.

4. Choice: Due to excess competition between service providers, it has been observed that service quality often drops and treatment/product cost increases. While there are an array of healthcare services to choose from, lack of information when it comes to comparison usually limits consumer choice and decision making.

The Disruption in Motion:

Healthcare has long vied for patient-centricity. Post the Covid 19 pandemic, new players have their eyes set on the healthcare market and are exploring abundant opportunities to enter the industry. Large scale and successful companies with proven customer focus like Amazon are demonstrating the credentials required to conquer the market. With abundant reach for customer intimacy and the right technology up their sleeves, some of the market leaders are in the process of making a breakthrough, soon.

67% respondents of a survey in 2020 believe that UnitedHealth and Optum healthcare might pose a severe risk to traditional healthcare providers in the USA. 66% of people vouched for CVS Health, 56% for Amazon, 39% for Google and Alphabet respectively and 38% for Apple.

Some of the other companies to disrupt the healthcare ecosystem include:

1. CareMore: A delivery system in partnership with Lyft has created a ride sharing app. This app allows providers, patients and caregivers to request rides, reducing non-emergency medical transportation by 39%. This intuitive and consumer-friendly transportation also aligns with the primary healthcare trend to drive inclusive digital healthcare programs. This helps in using the Medicare and Medicaid funds more economically.

2. CVS: recently merged with Aetna, CVS owns 10,000 retail stores in the USA and plans to convert some of its stores to provide non-emergency health services, serving as one stop shops for all healthcare needs. This merger has lead to a database of 65 million patients and a mobile digital prescription program.

3. Oscar Health: Is a relatively new entry to the health insurance space. It is extremely popular for its rich data science. Hence, this enables them to design optimal provider networks, real time testing and a personalized experience for every member on their database.

Further Disruptive Innovation:

The first digital healthcare revolution started with the launch of the internet browser in the 1990’s. For instance, this involved establishing a digitally connected ecosystem to form a steady foundation of an improved healthcare ecosystem. Healthcare providers could correctly understand and assess specific health intervention needs. For instance, they can create a well rounded care delivery system and categorize patients to deliver a seamless and hassle free experience for the end customer.

According to Accenture, 66% of heathcare organizations are transitioning towards a digital ecosystem, with the human in mind. While this sector has been slow to embrace the digital disruption, it has not been immune to it. However, with the everyday evolution of solution and delivery models, it is important that interaction between service providers and customers continue to change. There are a lot of the hurdles that the sector has to overcome. For instance, this includes various regulations, data security needs, physician-centric systems, in order to usher innovative disruption in the industry.

The key pieces that need to come together to create a more disruptive innovation in the field of healthcare consumerism:

  1. Strengthen the digital record-keeping of a person’s health data to include physical, emotional and other behavioural aspects of health. This includes going beyond only clinical and financial data of the patient.
  2. Introduce personalization to tailor make individual plans, in line with their skills, abilities and needs.
  3. Above all, a digital ecosystem that redefines the healthcare space by making it more intuitive and keeping the care getter at the center of the relationship.

Final Thoughts:

Healthcare consumerism needs to undergo a massive shift in the way the healthcare market plans, delivers, markets and charges for their services. Like banking, retail and entertainment, healthcare providers will need to build their brands to be able to survive in a highly cut-throat and competitive market. With the pandemic still very much present in people’s lives, we can expect the following in 2021:

• Higher premiums and out of pocket expenses for consumers.

• Employers to come up with improved tax-advantage plans.

• A more personalised, intuitive and open channel of communication to be set up by healthcare organizations.

• Active dissemination of information when it comes to reviews, information and advice through digital channels by service providers

• Healthcare to become market driven.

With anxious and worried consumers leaning more toward a value and conversation driven approach, healthcare will have to surpass its focus on volume and provide attention to patient care. With healthcare consumerism on the constant rise, the question is how are we going to generate an efficient, cost-effective and profitable system that suits people sitting at both sides of the table?

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Like other businesses, if you too are looking for IT Solutions for Healthcare Services, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have significant experience over the years working with Healthcare IT Companies. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom virtual healthcare solutions for our global clients over the years.

Here are a few interesting projects we have done to develop virtual health solutions. Click here to know more:

Case study on managing high risk patients.

PWA for Mental and Behavioral health professionals.

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Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis in Healthcare

Introduction:

Sentiment Analysis refers to analyzing text data and assigning some kind of sentiment to it. For e.g., we see a movie review on the IMDB website such as – “It was a good movie”. We can understand that the viewer liked the movie and we can go on to say that this review can be assigned a positive sentiment. Similarly, If the review was “It was a bad movie”, we can consider this as negative feedback for the movie and say that it generates a negative sentiment. So how do we go about creating a model that takes in a review/ statement as input and gives out the corresponding sentiment ?

One way to go about it is to create a dictionary of all words that correspond to positive feedback, and another of all words that provide negative feedback. Run a search through the statement and see which words are present. This is a very very simple example of how Sentiment analysis can be done. More on this later, but why would we need a Sentiment Analysis model?

Most companies provide their customers a platform, which could be social media or a company website, to express their feelings about a product or service so that the company can then use this data to improve the quality of their product / services. Since people can post feedback at ease with just their mobile phones, this generates a huge amount of data. Going through all data manually is a labor-intensive process. Hence, sentiment analysis has become an important tool for companies to track and monitor their online feedback and brand value. This is just one example; there are other areas as well where one can use a tool such as sentiment analysis. Let’s look at how it can help to solve some challenges in the Healthcare Industry.

Defining our Input to the model:

Before we discuss the details of the model, we need to find a way to represent sentences for a model to understand. The first approach is bag of words. The way this approach works is we first create a vocabulary of all words we have in our training data. This vocabulary then forms our feature space, or our X’s for the training. Given the number of words in the English language, we could have 10000 words in our vocabulary. We will get to reduce our feature space later.

So now that we have our X’s, we define a way to represent a sentence. We can do so by assigning the count of each word to our feature space. Coming back to our previous example, “It was a good movie”, we will have the following counts or word frequencies- It:1 , was: 1, a: 1, good:1, movie:1. The values for all other words will be 0. Each word will have a fixed position on our feature space, so for all other words, if we substitute zero then we have 0, 0,0,…,1,0,,…1,0…0. Note we have counts only at the position of the words in our current example. This type of encoding is also called one hot encoding.

We can limit the number of words our vocabulary has by using a few tricks, for instance removing words like a, the, this, is, etc. These words do not generally add any meaning to our sentences. These are stop words. Next, to further limit our vocabulary, we can keep only those words that have a frequency above a certain threshold. Doing this, we can reduce our vocabulary to 1/10th of our initial size. Now coming to encoding our target variable. Since this is a good review, we have 1 as our target variable. Note that we are only trying to classify good or bad reviews and having a 1 for good and 0 for bad is sufficient for training our model. All of these can be achieved by a few lines of code using python’s NLTK (Natural Language ToolKit) library and python’s Scikit-learn library.

Defining our model:

Machine learning can broadly be categorized into two parts, supervised and unsupervised learning. Supervised learning is one where we give both input and targets as training data. This is generally used for classification or regression tasks. Unsupervised learning contains just input data, no output is associated with it, and this is used for clustering problems, where the algorithm tries to group the input data into clusters. Since this is a classification problem, we will be classifying the review into one of the good or bad classes, we will rely on either Logistic regression or Random Forest classifier.

We will go into the details of logistic regression or Random Forest in a different article. But for the purpose of this venture, we will pass a python list (arrays) to the model. This is the input list that we get using one hot encoding as defined above, and get a one or zero as an output. Let’s assume the model we build has around 80% chance for classifying a given review accurately. This may not necessarily be difficult to achieve for a task such as this. All of these can be achieved fairly easily using python’s Scikit Learn library.

Problems faced by the service Industry and Solution with Sentiment Analysis:

An insurance company wants to find out whether imparting behavioral training to their service staff has an impact on the overall feedback they receive as reviews.

We start by defining a metric for valuation. Let our performance indicator be the number of positive reviews/ total number of reviews. Assuming there are at least 30 reviews for each staff under consideration. We get the reviews for all staff before and after behavioral training has been imparted. Put them through our model and generate positive and negative outcomes for these reviews. Then do a comparison of percentage positive and negative reviews before and after the training. This will establish a correlation between training and change in reviews. To establish causation, we also need to create treatment and control groups. The treatment group will have the staff that receives the training and control will be the staff that doesn’t. Comparing the change between treatment and control groups will tell us whether the training has an impact.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking for solutions in Sentiment Analysis, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have deep expertise in AI and ML Capabilities. With a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, that have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

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AI in Healthcare

AI in Healthcare Insurance

AI has transformed industries and has immense potential to reshape the healthcare landscape. Medical data like patient visits, prescriptions contain valuable information which can be extracted to create a more structured data format. This has become possible with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This in turn offers insights into the trends and facilitates collaboration between different healthcare units. Applications for AI in healthcare range from early detection of symptoms to potential diagnosis at a fraction of the cost and increased accuracy.

What is Optical Character Recognition?

Artificial intelligence refers to the use of Machine Learning algorithms to mimic human behavior. Say we want to create a program that takes an input and gives an output. The program uses some decision-making mechanism to arrive at an output. This is primitively done by something called IF-ELSE statements. The limitation of these statements is that one needs to know the exact condition that will produce the desired output. For example, we know the marks of a student and we want to assign a grade, we can hardcode the same using if-else statements – IF marks > 90 then grade = ‘A’. In this case, we have a clearly defined boundary that helps us arrive at our output. But what happens when we don’t have a clearly defined boundary?

Let me explain this with an example. Suppose we have an image of a letter. And we want our program to tell us which letter it is. What kind of code shall we write? This is an example of a problem that doesn’t have a clearly defined boundary. One way to solve this problem is to build a model, which does not use if-else statements but works quite differently. The idea is to feed the program an input image (say an image of ‘A’) and tell the program that it’s an ‘A’. We do this repetitively and try to get the program to learn what ‘A’ looks like. Hence, the term “Machine Learning”. We do the same for every letter or number. This falls under the computer vision category, namely Optical Character Recognition.

Overview of Natural Language Processing :

Natural language Processing is an area of AI and Linguistics and it deals with the application of computational techniques and models to the analysis of human languages. NLP deals with processing written text including but not limited to extracting useful information such as named entities, etc. This requires an understanding of what a word means, which is not something computers generally have. This too is done by learning, where a huge amount of text is fed to the model, and it will try to learn patterns and dependencies between words. In the next section, we will define a problem statement and see how an application of these two concepts can help us make better decisions faster, way faster.

Problems faced by the Healthcare Industry :

Insurance companies have certain parameters to account for when finalizing the premiums they charge for their insurance. One of the most important parameters is the medical history of the member/ insurance holder. The idea is that if a member has more cases of medical history then that member is more likely to raise a claim in the future, thereby costing more.

So the insurance companies need to know relevant details of the medical history and assign risk scores (this could be a topic for another article) corresponding to the medical history. But medical histories are generally stored in paper form. Suppose you had a doctor’s visit, everything there is generally stored in paper format. One might have had any number of tests, and these are in most cases available in paper form. Thus, going through all the paperwork of a member’s medical history is an engaging task. This might take a person anywhere between 30mins – 1 hour. So, is there a way to automate the task?

How can AI help to resolve the issue?

The first step in the process is to get the images of all our documents. The idea is to use OCR to extract the text information from images and subsequently use NLP to extract relevant information, such as diagnosis, procedure or operation, medications that the member is on, etc. There are many open-source OCR engines, one such engine is Tesseract OCR.

Tesseract is used for text detection within large documents or used in concurrence with an external text detector. It can be used directly or through an API to extract text from images. It supports Unicode and has the ability to discern more than 100 languages and can also be trained to recognize multiple languages. The current model, Tesseract 4 focuses on line recognition. It also supports the legacy Tesseract 3 in recognizing character patterns. It is compatible with many programming languages and frameworks. CNN (Convolutional Neural network) is typically used for single character whereas RNN is used for multi-characters.

The next step is to feed the image to the tesseract engine. It will give a file output that contains text extracted from the image. There are various Open source NLP engines. We then feed lines from the text file to our NLP engine which will read each line and use dependencies between words to figure out what our diagnosis, procedure or medications will be. Most NLP engines offer phrase matching capabilities, so we can look for particular phrases as well. We can narrow our search to a specific diagnosis (or any other information of relevance) as well.

Final Steps :

Once we have extracted output from the NLP engine, we can create a database that will have fields such as member name, document type, extracted information, etc. We can use the above pipeline and feed it numerous files at once. After every output, we can append the same to our database.

This process takes a mere few seconds to go through all the files of a member. Using this, we will be able to read through the medical history of thousands of members in a matter of hours.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking to develop applications for AI in healthcare, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have deep expertise in AI and ML Capabilities. With a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, that have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

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Chiropractic Practice Management Software

Chiropractic Practice Management Software

David was a renowned chiropractor in the city. “Dr. Dave” they called him.

“He has magic in those hands,” they would say.

“My mother tried yoga, and exercises, and medicines – nothing worked. One appointment with Dr. Dave, and now she goes about like she’s 20!” This was just one such story.

There were a lot more that served to spread his fame. Women and men of all ages would line up from across the city for his adjustments. They would assemble even before the clinic would open. Once, to handle the volume, David hired an assistant, but people would only want David. He had to let the person go. Continue reading Chiropractic Practice Management Software

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