Dr. Sabha Ganai has spent more than 20 years working in surgical oncology and medical ethics and has authored more than 50 publications. Over the years, Dr. Sabha Ganai has belonged to various medical organizations, including the American Medical Association.
The AMA recently undertook a Digital Health Research initiative that examined the most recent three years of data concerning the rate at which doctors are adopting digital health tools. The study also looked at how physicians feel about these tools and how they expect them to change the field.
One area that saw significant growth was telemedicine – the practice of doctors seeing patients virtually rather than meeting them in person. Only 14 percent of doctors used telemedicine in 2016, but that number doubled to 28 percent by 2019. This makes telemedicine the largest growing trend in the digital medicine field.
The second biggest growth area was in remote monitoring. In remote monitoring, patients interact with a mobile app or connected device that collects information about the patient’s health, such as blood pressure, glucose levels, weight, etc.
These digital tools are typically used for patients with chronic health conditions, and the data is sent electronically to their physicians. Only 13 percent of doctors used remote monitoring in 2016, but by 2019, that number was up to 22 percent.
Dr. Sabha Ganai 