During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients and their families preferred online consultations to avoid the exposures associated with going to clinics and interestingly, the outcome was quite beneficiary, indicating the benefits that digital health solutions could provide to patients. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the main cause of loss of life in most adults around the world. There has been a rise in CVDs in recent years, and preventive interventions are now seen as one of the key public health priorities. Digital technology is on the way to revolutionize heart health care as these tools have a great potential to improve our ability to prevent, accurately track, diagnose and treat disease effectively. These technologies will not only make users more informative about their health but also help in early diagnosis of diseases. The use of smart phones, internet applications, sleep trackers, blood pressure monitors, glucose and oxygen level sensors are providing valuable information to monitor cardio health and a roadmap to improve patient lifestyles and manage heart care easily. It also helps in ascertaining signs of new ailments or the change in prevailing heart conditions.
Many hospitals have started tele/digital health services for new patients and also for those who have undergone surgeries and are recovering.. Post-surgery patients are being equipped with the tools necessary to monitor their own vital signs and reach out to medical professionals. These services are quite beneficial for patients living far off. By harnessing the power of digital health, we will be able to help transform the healthcare system by reducing costs, improving quality health services and patient satisfaction. Investment on digital health will also benefit patients living in remotes having commuting issues to receive specialty cardio healthcare services.
Implantable devices like pacemaker and CVD or CRT devices that automatically record and transmit data can be used for enhanced home-based monitoring as these have the ability to provide continuous observation and identify relevant problems. Digital health also reduces the volume of device clinic visits and provides early detection of patient or device related problems.
Like every innovative adaptation, digital health also has its own challenges especially in India where providing health care facilities to rural parts of India is a real big task. Lack of buying and maintenance capacity of digital health equipment and digital infrastructure will create a major obstruction for overall implementation of digital health.
Even though the effect of digital health technologies on cardiovascular diseases has to go a long way, Keeping in view most cardiologists’ heavy schedules; there is an urgent need to integrate advanced digital solutions into existing medical solutions to get the maximum from digital healthe. There is also a committed need to invest in compiling healthcare and pharmaceutical data and analysing the same by experts to ascertain strengths and weaknesses to improve CVD digital health.