Tag: Ayurveda

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Geriatric Care Network

Geriatric Care network(GCN) – Adding life to years

Geriatric Care network(GCN) – Adding life to years

After spending a busy youth and middle age studying, working, in marriage, raising children, retirement is a phase of life to forward to. Most of us dream of a relaxed life with friends, spouse, children & grandchildren. We long to spend time at home, in the garden, reading, listening to music, on unrealized interests and hobbies, travel and dreams, spiritual, community and charitable activities.

On the other hand, retirement can also be a trying time – often accompanied by an upheaval in one’s life. The body undergoes many changes – things that were taken for granted may no longer be possible, there is a dramatic change to the daily routine – the pattern that one has followed for years is suddenly disrupted, there may be a change in living arrangement – involving a shifting to a different house or city, and often there may be a change in how you are perceived & perceive yourself – you no longer are the primary breadwinner or primary care giver and may become dependent in small or big ways on others. All of these changes coming at the same time, can sometimes be overwhelming.

Post retirement it is easy to feel as though you have nothing left to accomplish. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Older adults have a great deal to offer society– including their experience, knowledge, wisdom, skills and time.
As in all phases of life – good health is what makes all other things possible. As age catches up with us, we may be plagued by multiple health issues resulting from a life time of neglect or simply our genes. By retirement, the body has seen a lot and even if you have the good fortune to suffer no major ailments, an older body needs more attention and care than it did previously.

The key to staying in control and ahead of health challenges is to accept inevitable changes that are part of your life and focus on staying as fit as possible. Taking care of one’s physical and mental needs involves listening to your body and making appropriate diet and lifestyle changes to meet these needs. It is a widely acknowledged fact that ‘staying active’ is key to a feeling of well-being among older adults. Staying active means continuing daily life activities and remaining engaged with socially useful and productive work of any kind through the longer life spans that have become the norm today.

India has many long standing local health traditions that have a holistic approach to meeting physical and mental health needs. Ayurveda, one of the ancient Indian systems of medicine, deals with life and longevity and Rasayana, one of the eight clinical specialties of Ayurveda, specifically focuses on nutrition, immunology and geriatrics and has rich potential to promote health, rejuvenation and promotion of longevity among older adults.

Geriatric Care Network is a service for Senior Citizens seeking holistic medical and preventive care as part of their daily routine. Apart from preventive care and medical treatment, GCN service also provides advice on lifestyle, diet and yoga. It focuses on overall well-being and quality of life of older adults, equipping them for an independent life of purpose.

Geriatric Care Network is powered by a distributed network of Ayurveda Doctors and an electronic health record system that stores health information in the cloud where it can be accessed by the treating doctor and patient alike. GCN’s network of doctors are overseen by a core team of experienced specialists who review and advise to ensure effective care. Together the various elements of the service help seniors achieve their health and wellness goals.

High quality health care services can enable an independent, confident older population. Geriatric Care Network’s innovative offering in senior health care provides reliable medical advice and counseling and continuity of care and provides an option for seniors to be proactive about their health.

To know more about how Geriatric Care Network can help you maintain a healthy lifestyle, reach us at gcn-info@healthelife.in

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Ayurveda & EHR Knowledge

Ayurveda and modern healthcare – Part 2: Role in the current health care ecosystem

Ayurveda and modern healthcare – Role in the current health care ecosystem

The heritage – traditional – way of treating ailments and diseases have been prevalent and practiced for over thousands of years in India. We come from a land where ideas about plastic surgeries were discussed and documented long before people across frontiers actually started thinking about such possibilities. Ayurveda is as much of a science as modern medicine and has been continuously evolving over centuries.

However, in the recent past, Ayurveda has been gradually replaced with other alternate forms of healthcare from the west. Despite being a holistic approach to wellness and treatment, cost effective and more holistic, Ayurveda has indeed lost a bit of its ground among the masses.

The reasons for this are aplenty. One of the major reasons has been the inability of Ayurveda and its practitioners to keep up with evolving technologies. While allopathy adapted continuously to technological advancements in terms of equipments, medications and care protocols, Ayurveda remained rooted to it’s traditional ways of treatment and approaches. There has been hardly any restructuring of the infrastructure with respect to technology or use of contemporary technologies to regain lost ground.

Ayurveda practitioners still largely depend upon the century old books and documentation for their practice as attempts at re validating these in the modern context has been minimal. The exploration into creating newer medicines and protocols and evolving the traditional ones to a modern world has not been well organized and widely practiced. Such efforts remain largely hindered, for lack of technology adoption and standardization in Ayurveda.

Ayurinfomatics or the use of information and data in Ayurveda still remains to be a huge hurdle for practitioners as they either don’t believe such practices could be indeed put into action or they don’t have adequate skills and resources to implement their tech-based visions into their Ayurveda clinics.

The Wake Up Call for Ayurveda

However, a more favorable and conducive environment is emerging in the country for Ayurveda and other traditional sciences. This is the ideal opportunity for Ayurveda to resurrect itself into the holistic wellness solution it was meant to be from the beginning. Today’s lifestyle dictate the need for a cost-effective, efficient and wellness focused treatment agendas and techniques. Besides, Ayurveda is both promotive and preventive, further making it the right health care solution for today. Contrary to the side effects of many allopathic medications, Ayurvedic treatments are complementary in nature and holistic in approach.

If we have to be honest, this is the time of aggressive marketing, where drugs and medicines from manufacturers are favored by medical practitioners and the credibility of them are being consistently overlooked. This is exactly what Ayurveda – with its herb-based medications and practices – helps us guard against.

The Challenges

For Ayurveda to become increasingly prominent among people today, it really has to step up its tech infrastructure. Most clinics and treatment centers still use registers for recording of patient details and paper-based prescriptions or medications. There are still no proper ways to track progress and the method of diagnosis is still old school. Ayurveda practitioners need to resolve a few basic challenges together by integrating modern technology into their work and leverage it’s capabilities. They should

  • Use computers in clinics, wellness centers and hospitals
  • Move to electronic health record systems(EHR)
  • Share records of patient information and health details for transparency
  • User data science to process and analyze data for better wellness deliverance and diagnosis

Implementing electronic health records(EHR) systems is one of the best ways to become on par with the competition because the records pave way for personalized health care treatments, more precise diagnosis of ailments, better tracking of patient information, remote retrieval of the information and more. By sharing EHR with your patients, you improve transparency and build long term trust and loyalty.

Government of India has also realized the importance of modern technology and information systems in health care and has come up with Electronic Health Records Standards for India. These standards analyze the diverse aspects of implementing technology and lay out regulations to be followed for uniformity and interoperability. This provides a great opportunity for Ayurveda practitioners to change their conventional working and operating model to adapt to emerging technologies for business and better treatments.

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Ayurveda & EHR Knowledge

Ayurveda and modern healthcare – Part I : Science and philosophy behind the alternative approach to health and well being

It is believed that when most part of the west were attempting to understand cultivation and farming, we – as Indians – were working on scientific theories on cosmos, life, spirituality, health and more. We were ahead of the rest of the world in the early ages of civilisation till we started losing out during colonisation. This advancement is evident in some of the sacred texts of the Hindu mythology and well preserved and documented knowledge that are still available. The yogis and the saints have documented their basic(and often in line with our modern understanding) thoughts on creation, life, cosmos etc. These have been preserved through generations and are used a source of knowledge even to this day

One such major contribution has been on health and well being of humans, where the stress is on holistic wellness often involving a combination of medicines, spiritual practices and meditation. All these learnings have evolved into a highly organised and structured system of medication and wellness practices called Ayurveda – or the Veda of life.

Apart from being the most popular healthcare practice in India, Ayurveda also found its application and research from people around the world. At around 400AD, Ayurveda was translated into Chinese and 300 years later, it attracted Chinese scholars to the Nalanda University for research and study purposes[1].

The Philosophy Behind Ayurveda

Ayurveda is based on factors or parameters like health, diseases, disorder and balance and not on pathology and physiology alone . It is based on the principle that diseases arise from the imbalances among the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual being and that, to be free from diseases, there should exist a harmony amongst physical actions, thoughts, feelings, and the very purpose of healing.

It is an amalgamation of concepts and practices from medical arts, behavioral/physical sciences, and the six Indian philosophical systems – Vedanta, Mimamsa, Vaisheshika, Nyaya, Yoga and Sakhya. The central belief surrounding Ayurveda is that life is the confluence of senses, mind, body and spirit. The functioning of the life (in any form) revolves mainly around the interactions of three primary energy systems or doshas:

Kapha – it signifies the physical and structural aspects
Pitta –it signifies the intellectual and trans-formative aspects
Vata – it signifies the energetic, dynamic and non-material aspects of nature

As per Ayurveda, vata takes care of movement, blood circulation, respiration, creativity, speech and the nervous system. Kapha takes care of anabolic systems and processes such as fluid secretion, binding, potency, lubrication, compassion, patience and fluid balance. Lastly, pitta takes care of metabolism, digestion, body temperature, courage, complexion, vision, cheerfulness, intellection and other trans-formative processes.

Human life is sustained by the interactions of these three energies and when there are imbalances in the energies (which differ from one person to another depending on their Prakruti, their basic template at the time of creation), it manifests as ailments or diseases. Ayurveda looks at both the subjective and objective aspects of ailments and individual characteristics to restore balances in these energies and prepare wellness and treatment agendas.

In this article, we have tried to give an introduction to the basic philosophy behind Ayurveda. We will be exploring deeper into how Ayurveda treats your diseases and ailments in future posts. . If you would like to be kept updated on such articles in the future, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

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Knowledge

Top 5 Advantages of Electronic Health Record(EHR) Solutions

On our previous post, we saw an introduction to what an electronic health record is all about. And in this post, we would shed more light on the advantages of electronic health record solutions. While EHRs have been widely adopted in Western medicine, their full potential is yet to be completely leveraged by Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy healthcare practices to deliver a comprehensive wellness service that will significantly improve a person’s health. So if you are clinician practising Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy and looking to improving healthcare standards, here is why you should incorporate electronic health record solutions into your system.

Precise Documented Information

With electronic health records, you have with you precisely documented information about your patients and their medical history. With digitized documents, you are making it easier for your patients and other clinicians to retrieve patient information regardless of location and time. With EHR, the chances of errors caused by human intervention or word-of-mouth communication are also averted. Besides, electronic health records allow doctors and wellness practitioners to easily look into patients’ health history instantly and look at any information such as allergies or side-effects that would stall or impact their treatment agendas. Sandhya Pruthi – the Managing Director of Mayo Clinic, Minnesota, claims that with EHR, she could easily pull up test results in an exam room with her patients. She also adds that she could instantly verify if they have had past procedures or exams and even show her patients the imaging of theirs tests and screenings.

Better Diagnosis

Being a centralized portal, electronic health records keep updating after any change is made by clinicians to a patient’s health record. This allows doctors or other clinicians to get a comprehensive look at the patient’s medical history and diagnose diseases better and come up with more effective treatment agendas. When a wellness practitioner looks at an EHR, he or she could easily understand the procedures undergone by the patient without having to rely on patient’s oral information or a paperwork report that could be obsolete. This immensely reduces the chances of errors in treatment practices.

Data Analytics

Electronic health records are all about consistent updation of medical data and patient record.
This constant generation of data allows for effective analysis of the data to come up with both prescriptive and predictive responses. Preventive health is one of the major advantages provided by EHR solutions, wherein clinicians can easily tell of any potential outbreaks during epidemics such as flu or if it is a right time for health screenings, preventive therapy or more instances.

Reduced Medical Errors

It is scary to think about an error in the field of medicine and that is one of the major reasons why electronic health records are like the optimum solutions. Paperwork and files can be easily lost or misplaced giving rise to misplaced patient information. Or, instances as simple as illegible handwriting can also stand as a barrier in delivering the right healthcare treatment. Situations like these are at a greater chance of giving rise to medical errors, which could be life-altering for patients and practitioners. EHR tremendously reduce the chances of such occurrences, paving way for a smooth healthcare deliverance. Regardless of the number of consultations from different doctors and clinicians, information on these digital records is instantly updated with precise patient information.

Streamline workflow

One of the biggest advantages for owners of hospitals and clinics lies in the operations and management of the place. By going digital, electronic health records make it easy for you to streamline your tasks and workflow processes and clear clutter in your premises by replacing paper with digital records stored on the cloud. It is also time-saving as your clinicians can now spend more time on analyzing patient data rather than filling them out. Efficiency of operations can be significantly increased and there can be clarity in day-to-day operations.

These are the preliminary sets of advantages electronic health records offer to patients and hospitals. To know more about how electronic health records can be beneficial, check out this quick video. To know how AyushEHR can personally benefit your resort, hospital or clinic get in touch with us today.

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Knowledge

A Beginner’s Guide to Electronic Health Record

 

One of the primary goals of tech revolutions is to offer convenience to people. Apart from making way for elevated and sophisticated lifestyles, ideal evolution of technology is where it works at the grass root levels and makes lives better for those who are in need of it. Driver-less cars, smart refrigerators and automated homes are essential but smart farming, autonomous power grids and digitized healthcare are necessities. Thanks to the advancements recently, healthcare has been significantly influenced by technology and one such offspring is an EHR or the Electronic Health Record.

What is an EHR?

In simple words, an Electronic Health Record is a digital version of your health record or your medical history. Instead of storing the data on paper and retrieving it during medical consultations, an electronic health record offers you the convenience of saving your data digitally over the cloud. Since it gets stored on a centralized portal, it becomes easy for clinics and doctors to retrieve your medical history and proceed with diagnosis or healthcare.

One of the most significant advantages of the electronic health record include the inclusion of data such as the following:

  • Radiology reports
  • Laboratory data
  • Immunizations
  • Past individual medical history
  • Vital Signs
  • Medications
  • Earlier Diagnosis
  • Progress notes
  • Demographics and more

Besides, the electronic health record also automates the flow of data and helps clinics streamline their workflows. Apart from healthcare, the health record fosters the evolution of a clinic’s operational procedures including data-driven decision making, outcomes reporting, quality management and more.

The Pros of Electronic Health Records

Apart from allowing doctors, physicians and clinics to deliver better diagnostic services to patients, electronic health records allows for improved healthcare by significantly reducing the occurrence of medical errors. With accurate and most recent data in hand, there is little scope for errors or misconceptions in diagnosis.

Besides, electronic health records also save significant time and strain of patients by eliminating the need to scan or undergo tests again and preventing any delays in treatments. With a streamlined electronic health record in hand, you can ensure you receive systematic services regardless of which clinic or specialist doctor you intend to get diagnosed from. With the record, the doctor will quickly take up the role of a ‘family doctor’ by knowing your medical history and recent ailments, allowing him or her to offer better diagnosis.

Electronic Health Records in Indigenous Medical Practices

Generally, electronic health records have been tested and applied in conventional medical practices. Little efforts have been taken in applying the benefits of electronic health records in the indigenous medical practices such as Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy. These medical practices require as much medical information about a patient as clinics do and for better and informed treatments, clinics practicing them require a centralized portal to retrieve the piece of information.

Naturopathy centers, Yogic healing centers and Ayurveda clinics can opt for electronic health records systems to deliver better services to individuals or patients who prefer the treatment practice and develop better treatment agendas for their wellbeing.

With an effective electronic health record in place, resorts, clinics, hospitals and medical colleges can work on delivering better healthcare treatments to patients and guests. To know how it can benefit your clinic or business, get in touch and we will help you out.

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Healthelife news

AyushEHR Software Solution for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy @Advantage Healthcare 2017

Ayush EHR our Solution for Ayurvedic, Yoga and Naturopathy Practitioners was demonstrated during the recently concluded Advantage Healthcare Event from October 12 to 14 2017, at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre. The FICCI event was focused on accelerating the growth of Medical Value Travel from current 15% to 25% to make it a 9 Billion USD industry by 2020.

The Exhibitors at the event included multi-specialty hospitals, medical value travel operators, Ayurvedic, Yoga and Naturopathy Centres and Government Agencies such as AYUSH, Tourism and NABH.

We connected with AYUSH practitioners who visited and exhibited and invited them for a demo of our offering. We received positive feedback and will follow-up in the coming weeks. A second segment that we connected were the Medical Value Travel Operators, there was key interest from multiple players in the segment to move up the value chain by offering EHR based service to their customers. The third segment of players we met were companies offering health care services starting from market place to connect individuals to wellness providers to IOT based home care solutions. Health information management using our standards aligned, inter-operable EHR.Network platform was explored.

Overall in spite of the heavy rains in Bengaluru, we were heartened by the footfall and interest shown by visitors to our booth. We have generate good leads and hope to get early customers for our AYUSH EHR.