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Digital Health Literacy: Why It Matters For Hospitals

August 13, 2021August 13, 2021 Michelle

Hospital administrators have always been concerned with digital health literacy since medical computers were introduced into the workplace. The pandemic has only exacerbated these concerns. According to the World Health Organization, digital health literacy is defined as, “the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem.” While doctors, nurses, and all medical staff have no doubt gone through digital training, the same cannot be said for their patients.

Patients cannot be left out of the digital health literacy conversation, especially now. Countless at-risk patients rely on hospitals for their healthcare, but not all of them can regularly visit their local provider due to the pandemic. More senior patients may struggle with telehealth appointments. It is up to hospitals to ensure that their patients are able to easily and safely access the medical information they need.

Digital Health Literacy: Offer An Easy Online Health Portal

72% of US adult internet users seek out medical information online according to the WHO. While there is no doubt quality healthcare information on the internet, there is no substitute for a doctor’s first hand opinion. Create a health portal for your patients that contains articles and information. This portal can include tips on living healthy, as well as answers to some of the most common medical questions. Doctors and nurses can regularly update this portal. Include easy links in these pages for your patients to contact their doctors with further questions.

Give Patients Multiple Language Options

Many patients are digitally savvy, but not every patient speaks English as their first language. Patients may be more averse to seeking out the care they need via telehealth appointments if they are unsure how to even set one up. Create clearly demarcated buttons across your website to change the language. Include languages that are common to your area and the whole of the country.

Host Workshops For Digital Averse Patients

Your more senior patients may struggle with the basics of using their computers, such as using a mouse to interact with objects on screen. Hosting small workshops may greatly bolster their attempts at using computers for medical reasons. These workshops can go over the basics of using a computer to access medical information, digital health literacy, and appointments online.

Digital Health Literacy: Ensure Doctors Know Their Patients’ Limits

Doctors, through no fault of their own, project a sense of authority. It comes with the position. However, this projection of authority can make asking questions difficult for some patients. Have your doctors ask their patients if they know how to access telehealth appointments. Some may be averse to admitting the bounds of their digital health literacy at first. But together, your doctors and patients can make a healthcare plan that fits both these times and future ones.

Bridge The Digital Divide With Tangent

The digital divide doesn’t have to affect healthcare. Ensure that your patients are up to date on their digital health literacy so that their treatments can continue. Tangent is here to help ensure that your doctors can likewise access patient information, perform telehealth appointments, and more on their medical computers. For more information, contact Tangent Sales today.

Tele-Health, Tele-Medicine, and Tele-Patient Appointments On Medical Computers

August 2, 2021August 2, 2021 Michelle

This pandemic has not only changed the way healthcare operates, but also how it is delivered. Virtual appointments were scarce before 2020, often used as an auxiliary option for patients. Now nearly any appointment that can be done online is. Tele-health, Tele-medicine, Tele-patient appointments all play increasingly important roles in the hospital.

Despite their similar names, these types of virtual appointments couldn’t be any more different.

Tele-health On Medical Computers

Sometimes an appointment revolves simply around a doctor needing to speak with their patient. This could be for an annual checkup, or even a screener interview to see if further medical attention is needed. Tele-health is perfect for these instances.

For tele-health appointments, doctors use their medical computer as a virtual phone. This allows them to connect with patients face-to-face, while also having their medical records on hand.

m24t medical grade computer — Tangent M24T Medical Computer

The Medix 24T from Tangent comes with a built-in, front-facing camera. This high resolution camera is perfect for tele-health appointments and allows patients to see their doctors with the utmost clarity.

What Is Tele-medicine

Tele-medicine takes the practical applications of tele-health one step further. In addition to patients having face-to-face time with their doctors, they also receive treatment. Treatment options with tele-medicine can vary, but are made increasingly easier with the right medical computers.

Nearly all of Tangent’s medical computers feature front facing cameras to capture your doctor during tele-medicine appointments. These same medical computers can be used with remote monitoring equipment at your patient’s homes, directly feeding virtual information to your doctors.

Tele-medicine can also include remote wound treatment, where doctors carefully explain over a medical call how to perform a vital operation. This could entail an emergency surgery, or a routine medical equipment adjustment. In either case, having a high-resolution camera to capture all of the details being presented is central to your doctors’ success.

Tele-Patient: Virtual Visitors

Tele-patient appointments are the most unique among the three virtual visits. They can include services from both tele-health and tele-medicine appointments, but with the added benefit of visitors.

Patients are allowed and encouraged to have other family members or caretakers present during tele-patient appointments. These visitors can either be in the same room as the patient, or use their own computer to login from a distance.

Tele-patient appointments offer a way for patients to feel at ease and cared for during these difficult times. They also promote social distancing while still allowing for quality healthcare.

Virtual Appointments With Tangent

The pandemic is in a star of limbo, where it’s unclear when its effects will dwindle. While the pandemic will surely pass, virtual appointments are here to stay. Hospitals need the best medical computers for their doctors to perform these visits. Learn more by contacting Tangent Sales today.

Telemedicine With Medical Computers In A Post-Pandemic World

June 5, 2021June 16, 2021 Tangent Writing Team

The last year has been a challenging one for many hospitals. The pandemic strained resources and personnel throughout the winter. But things are beginning to turn around, thanks in part to the widespread availability of vaccines. As hospitals exit the pandemic, they must turn their sights back towards helping everyday patients. The lessons learned in the pandemic should not go to waste however. The pandemic has accelerated medical grade computer adoption in the medical industry, and this adoption still has a place in a post-pandemic world.

Telemedicine With Medical Computers

Telemedicine has seen a remarkable boom in use during the pandemic. Patients with severe conditions rely on hospitals for their treatments. These could be needed on a weekly or daily basis. But when the pandemic hit, these patients were faced with a stark choice: receive the treatment they need and potentially put themselves in harm’s way, or forgo treatment and similarly see a decline in their health.

Neither option is ideal, and that’s where telemedicine came in. Telemedicine on medical computers allowed doctors to virtually connect with their most at-risk patients. Their patients in turn received the quality healthcare they needed. This was accomplished thanks to medical computers like the M24T from Tangent.

The M24T from Tangent is a full-fledged medical computer built with telehealth in mind. The M24T has an impressive front-facing camera that doctors can use in telehealth appointments to allow their patients to actually see them. This face-to-face contact is crucial not only for your patient’s peace-of-mind, but also for your doctors to better understand their patients.

The M24T also has a full touchscreen. This touchscreen allows doctors to view medical charts, x-rays, and other medical information using just their hands. This intuitive design facilitates easier communication between doctors and their patients, and cuts down on wasted time during telemedicine appointments.

Medical computers like the M24T can also connect with remote monitoring technology. Remote monitoring has allowed doctors to remotely perform the tests that some high-risk patients need on a daily or weekly basis, all without needing patients to actually come into the hospital.

All Of The Convenience With None Of The Hassle

Tangent medical computers allow patients to visit with their doctors remotely, getting all the medical care they need without the hassle. For more information, contact Tangent Sales today.

tangent medical computers for remote monitoring

Remote Patient Monitoring With Medical Computers

February 8, 2021February 8, 2021 Michelle

During this pandemic, telehealth has seen an unprecedented rise in its use. The federal government, in collaboration with private companies, have made telehealth more accessible than ever before. But telehealth is only one half of the picture. While patients of all backgrounds can make use of telehealth to virtually see their doctors, some patients require more care than these appointments can offer. That’s where remote patient monitoring comes in. Remote patient monitoring bridges the gap between telehealth appointments and physical appointments, allowing doctors to remotely monitor the vitals of high-risk patients without needing them to go into the hospital.

Why Remote Monitoring With Medical Computers Is Important

Since the beginning of this pandemic, protecting those most susceptible to infection has been a top priority of every healthcare facility. People with disabilities, the eldery, and those with pre-existing conditions have been found to be at higher risk for severe cases. At the same time, these groups are those who rely on hospitals for routine medical care the most.

Telehealth appointments have allowed these patients to consult with their doctors. But it is remote monitoring that gives them the true care they need. Hospitals like Mount Sinai have made use of remote monitoring to measure the vital signs of patients in their own homes. This allows patients to have their vitals checked and sent to their doctor’s medical computers back at the hospital for analysis. The same tests that patients relied on pre-pandemic are then available to patients without putting them at-risk.

Will Remote Monitoring Stay After The Pandemic?

Remote monitoring will more than likely stick around long after this period has subsided. Remote monitoring has always been one of the next innovations bound to hit the medical space, and the pandemic has simply accelerated this. Mount Sinai originally started their remote monitoring efforts all the way back in 2014. With this in mind, it only makes sense for other hospitals to begin to accelerate their own remote monitoring efforts by investing in the necessary architecture.

Tangent medical grade computers are the best medical computers — M24T Medical Computer For Remote Monitoring

At the backbone of this architecture is the medical computers your doctors, medical assistants, and nurses use every day. The same medical computers that they use for telehealth appointments can be used for remote monitoring data retrieval, however not every medical computer is built with these applications in mind. Medical computers from Tangent are designed with both telehealth and remote monitoring in mind. With built-in front facing cameras, microphones, and high-bit color monitors for better diagnostics, medical computers from Tangent are perfect for both telehealth and remote monitoring.

Remote Monitoring With Tangent

Tangent has built its line of medical computers for the future, and the future is telehealth and remote monitoring. Bring your hospital into the digital age with the best medical computers for the task. Contact Tangent Sales today for more information.

Should Hospitals Continue Using Telehealth Appointments After The Pandemic?

January 9, 2021February 8, 2021 Michelle

Telehealth has become synonymous with healthcare during this pandemic. Hospitals around the country are using telehealth services on their medical computers to continue caring for their patients. GlobalData has found that 79% of medical specialists are now using telemedicine in the hospital. This is in part due to federal regulators and the private sector making telemedicine easier than ever to implement in hospitals. But will telehealth remain after the pandemic has subsided?

Telehealth After The Pandemic

Telehealth has become an integral part of how hospitals treat patients. Patients have become accustomed to the appointments, which do not require them to spend time driving to the hospital and waiting for the doctor. In fact, 9 out of 10 patients who used telehealth for appointments had a positive experience.

But these appointments were only made possible by sweeping federal action at the beginning of the pandemic, and are at risk of being taken away. The American Medical Association has previously called for the pandemic-related waivers that make telehealth possible to be expanded with the Telehealth Modernization Act. With this legislation and other similar ones being brought to the house and senate floor, it’s looking likely that telehealth will become a permanent fixture in the hospital setting.

Continuing Use Of Telehealth After The Pandemic

Hospitals should expect to continue making use of telehealth after the pandemic. While the service has been primarily used by at-risk patients, widening its availability can help hospitals reach more patients. With advanced medical computers from Tangent like the M24T, doctors can rapidly see numerous patients back-to-back. The primary benefit of the use of medical computers for telehealth is this saved time, for both doctors and patients. Doctors do not have to wait for patients to be roomed, and can quickly switch from one patient to the next without having to walk through the hospital.

Medical PC — Medical Grade 24″ Computer For Telemedicine

Telehealth With Tangent

Tangent has always designed their lineup of medical grade computers to be telehealth-ready, and during this pandemic this design-choice has been greatly utilized. Learn more about how Tangent can help your hospital in its telehealth efforts by contacting Tangent Sales today.

medical computers for telehealth therapy

Telehealth Therapy Appointments On Medical Computers Save Time

December 18, 2020December 18, 2020 Michelle

It’s no secret that telehealth has become a vital part of medical care across the country. As the pandemic continues to worsen, hospitals are seeing staffing shortages. Telehealth on medical computers helps fill in the gaps left by staffing shortages, allowing doctors to see more patients in a day than would typically be possible. The American Medical Association has called for the pandemic-related waivers that make telehealth possible to be expanded with the recently introduced Telehealth Modernization Act.

But it’s not just traditional medical appointments that benefit from being transformed into telehealth appointments on medical computers. Therapy and mental health appointments can — and have — also greatly benefit from being done on telehealth enabled devices.

Therapy Appointments Using Telehealth

The Harvard Business Review recently took a look at the pros and cons of therapy and psychiatry appointments via telehealth. Here’s what they found,

“The payoff can be huge: a cascade of improvements to EHRs, integration of digital clinical data and collateral information, a data-driven approach to clinical decision-making, more tailored clinical monitoring and responsiveness, and a sustainable model for personalized care at scale.”

When telehealth on medical computers becomes normalized, the success of therapy appointments on the whole can be greatly expanded.

Efficient Appoints Using Telehealth

One of the main drawbacks to physical appointments is their length. Patients must check-in, be roomed, and screened by medical assistants. This process occurs on the hospital’s time, and requires rooms be made available to patients even before they are being treated. Furthermore, during this pandemic, these rooms can be used for other vital work or even transformed into additional ICU space.

With medical computers, doctors can use their office to virtually “room” scores of patients in a single day. Patients can fill out forms and be screened on their own time, and doctors can see one patient after another without clogging up the hospital’s supply of rooms.

Furthermore, at-risk patients that have underlying diseases in addition to their mental illnesses do not have to be put in harm’s way by entering the actual hospital. They can remain safe at their homes, and doctors likewise do not have to come into contact with more people than is absolutely necessary.

Tangent Medical Computers Medicare And Telehealth — Telehealth on Tangent Medical Computers

Medical grade computers from Tangent, in addition to being built for Telehealth, are antimicrobial. This means that their casing mitigates the growth of harmful pathogens on its surface, keeping your doctors safer while they do their vital work.

Tangent: Here To Help With Telehealth

Tangent medical computers are custom built for telehealth applications, and can help your doctors virtually meet with more patients than ever. When resources are stretched thin, your hospital can rely on Tangent to fill in the gaps. Contact Tangent Sales today for more information.

How Hospitals Are Adapting To Meet Surging Hospitalization Rates

December 9, 2020December 9, 2020 Michelle

The U.S. is continuing to set new records for case numbers nearly every day, and the third wave of this pandemic seems to be in full swing. Hospitals around the country are preparing for numbers to continue to skyrocket, as the full effect of the holiday season has yet to be seen as the L.A. Times reports that this may only be the beginning of the ‘Thanksgiving bump.’ Hospitals around the country need to prepare for even more cases, and consequently more hospitalizations, in the coming days. Some hospitals have found ways to stretch their resources to meet the demands of this pandemic.

ABC27 News recently talked with several hospitals about what they are doing to increase the capacity of their facilities. According to the article, Penn State Health is planning on converting recovery rooms and short-stay units into treatment areas to meet rising hospitalization in a move to increase their capacity beyond their 170 ICU beds.

Other hospitals in the area, like UPMC, have added nearly 200 nurses in the past week to ensure patients have the care they need. In addition, UPMC has expanded its telemedicine capabilities to ensure patients can access vital care.

Telemedicine is one way that hospitals can virtually increase their capacity without using up valuable hospital space. Telemedicine allows patients to virtually connect with their doctors via medicals computers for appointments and checkups. Often, these appointments are quicker and easier for both patients and doctors, saving medical professionals valuable time to treat more patients. In a time when every resource, including time, is stretched thin, telemedicine on medical computers allows doctors to work with more patients at once.

Telemedicine buy tangent on tangent medical grade computers

While staffing shortages continue to affect hospitals around the country, telemedicine can be a vital tool in allowing your current staff to treat as many patients as possible. Tangent is committed to bringing hospitals the best technology to meet this moment, and their medical computers are a reflection of this.

Tangent medical computers feature antimicrobial casings, fully-sanitizable touch screens, and IP ratings for water and dust resistance. Most importantly, they are built to be telemedicine-ready, and can help hospitals virtually increase their capacity. When hospitals reach out, Tangent is there to help. Contact Tangent Sales today for more information.

Medical Grade Computers Built For Quality Care Telemedicine

September 14, 2020September 14, 2020 Michelle

Telehealth has become a lifeline for doctors and patients seeking to establish some sense of normality during these trying times. While telehealth has been around long before the pandemic began, it’s use has skyrocketed. According to GlobalData, 79% of medical specialists said they were now using telemedicine in their hospital setting, setting a trend of using this technology may not be quick to fade. At-risk patients can safely see their doctors without being put in harm’s way, and doctors have to interact in close contact with fewer people on a daily basis.

This win-win situation has been made easier than ever thanks to loosening restrictions. Federal agencies, insurance companies, and hospitals have all made the use of medical grade computers for telehealth possible. As more doctors and patients become accustomed to telemedicine, regulators have been considering keeping these restrictions loosened. If this is the case then telemedicine may be here to stay, and choosing the right medical grade computers to use will be crucial to every hospital’s success.

Medical Grade Computers Built For Telemedicine

Not every medical grade computer is built specifically for telemedicine, in fact most are not. A good medical grade computer for telemedicine should be designed for virtual meetings, like the newly enhanced H22 from Tangent. The H22 medical computer from Tangent is a freshly designed computer ready for telemedicine.

Sporting a front-facing camera and fully santiziable touchscreen, doctors can easily and safely talk to patients virtually. The H22 medical grade computer’s antimicrobial mitigates the growth of pathogens and helps keep your hospital safe.

Talk To Patients On The Move

Your doctors are busy, and their time is precious. Telemedicine helps doctors see more patients virtually, but requires them to be firmly planted at their desk. That is, unless they use medical grade computer tablets like the T13 from Tangent. With the T13 medical tablet, doctors can analyze patient charts, catch up on their emails, and even start or end telehealth appointments while on the move. Your doctors can effectively be in two places at once with medical grade tablets in their hands.

Create A Healthy Hospital With Tangent

It’s not easy to maintain a safe indoors environment, but there are ways to help this upkeep. Telemedicine appointments help lessen the amount of people physically present in the hospital, aiding social distancing efforts and relieving stress for many. In addition, telemedicine through antimicrobial medical computers can help reduce the risk of contact-based transmission.

Your doctors need tools that they can not only rely on, but ones they can trust to do more good than harm. With Tangent medical grade computers, doctors can perform their vital work without worry. Contact Tangent Sales today for more information on telemedicine and medical computers.

Good posture at medical computers is important

Good Sitting Posture At Your Medical Computer

August 31, 2020August 31, 2020 Michelle

As the pandemic continues on, your doctors are no doubt making more use of their medical computers for telehealth purposes. Loosening restrictions by the federal government have made implementing telehealth solutions in the hospital easier and safer than ever. But as a consequence of this, doctors are spending more time sitting down at their medical computers with patients than they normally would. We’ve come up with some great ways to ensure that your doctors and nurses maintain good health by maintaining good posture at their medical computers.

Why Sitting Posture At Medical Computers Is Important

Medical computers are tools designed to increase the wellbeing of others, but without proper posture these efforts can have a negative impact on a doctor’s health. Poor sitting posture can lead to:

Increased strain on the body
Reduced spine health
Above average damage to joints and muscles.

Over time the lasting consequences of poor posture can negatively impact one’s quality of life, and lead to health complications down the road. But the negative health effects of poor posture can easily be avoided.

Maintaining Good Posture In The Hospital

Good posture isn’t just something you learn, it’s a lifestyle decision that you live each day. For doctors at medical computers, posture is something that can be practiced each day to increase overall health.

When sitting at your medical computer, it is important to avoid crossing your knees and ankles, as this can put unnecessary strain on the joints and muscles of these body parts. Keep your legs in front of you, inline with your hips. Likewise, keep your arms at right angles towards the keyboard. Your medical computer should have standard VESA mounting, and be capable of being adjusted directly to eye level. You don’t want to be straining your neck to look down at your medical computer’s monitor.

Above all, make sure you are sitting up straight. It is more than tempting to slink back into your chair, but keeping your chair flush against your back can prevent a slow fall into this position. Your height plays a big factor into all of this, make sure that your desk and medical computer are calibrated to your height accordingly. Your equipment should work around you, not the other way around.

Maintain Good Posture With Tangent

The posture of your doctors is crucial to your hospital’s long term success. Health doctors make healthy patients, and tangent is here to help. Tangent’s lineup of medical computers are capable of being mounted, making them easy to customize for an individual’s unique posture requirements. Give your doctors the posture aid they need with medical computers from Tangent.

Tangent can help hospitals ditch their fax machine for modern medical computers

Why Hospitals Rely On Fax Machines, And How They Can Advance With Medical Computers

August 11, 2020August 11, 2020 Michelle

If you wanted to buy something off your favorite online shop, and the only way to get your receipt was via fax, would you still buy it? Chances are you would, but forgo collecting your receipt altogether. The matter of the fact is that fax machines are (and have been) outdated for decades. But despite advances in medical grade computer technology, nearly 90% of hospitals still rely on these dinosaurs of machines to transfer patient data around the hospital. Why are fax machines still prevalent in hospitals around the country when medical grade computers are more advanced than ever? To answer this question, we will have to go back to when patient data was on paper instead of on medical grade computers.

The HITECH Act And Transition To Medical Computer Records

In 2009 amidst the previous economic recession, President Obama passed a series of legislation aimed at reinvigorating the economy. One of these acts was the HITECH Act, which among other things also set aside $30 billion for hospitals to revamp their paper medical records by digitizing them and putting them on medical grade computers. The switch from paper medical records to digital ones on medical computers proved to be a huge success, with medical computer-based patient records jumping from from 9 percent in 2008 to 83 percent in 2015 according to Vox.

The large stimulus amount in this Act is mostly responsible for this jump in medical computer-based record usage. But even though hospitals adopted the use of medical grade computers for their records, the industry that created patient record software still had some catching up to do.

There was no part in this Act that forced these software companies to work together on standardizing files. Because of this, a radiologist may want to send an X-ray over to a cardiologist in the same hospital, but have no way for the file to accurately transfer. This harkened back to the earliest days of computers, when programs and files had no standardization and often required specific software and hardware combinations to work.

Thus, the fax machine was used to physically print off patient information from medical computers, and send copies to other departments and hospitals.

How Can Hospitals Ditch The Fax Machine?

If medical grade computers are flying cars, then fax machines are roads. While they played an important role in the transition to full medical grade computer use, they are quickly approaching their expiration date. Medical computers have long had medical software that is both safe and secure, and capable of transporting medical data.

Secure email can also play a pivotal role in transferring patient data between medical grade computers. These options also allow hospitals to save on paper and ink costs, and free up valuable realty that is taken up by bulky fax machines. However, this does not explain how hospitals can get their medical grade software to communicate with each other.

The 21st Century Cures Act requires that medical software to exchange medical data with other medical software without special effort. The exact meaning of this Act is still up for debate, but is promising in its scope. If implemented as intended, this Act would require medical software companies to play nice with each other, and finally allow that radiologist to email the cardiologist an X-Ray.

How Can Hospitals Be Ready For The Removal Of Fax Machines?

Fax machines have come and gone for a large part of the economy. Hospitals, being some of the last to make the transition away from the fax machine have many choices to choose from. With quality medical computer technology, hospitals can make this transition easily and securely. Contact Tangent sales today to learn about special offers on upgrading your hospital to the digital age.