Though healthcare is people-driven, with parents, doctors, nurses, and surgeons, there’s also a technical side to it. And the more you know about the technical side, the better you can handle certain organizational aspects of your health care on your own.
For example, if you know about things like HITECH, what advance directives are used for, how health insurance is hooked up to the digital realm, what certain technologies mean for quality of life (in case of an accident, for instance), and the importance of catching digital errors, then there are far fewer chances for you to end up in situations outside of your control when it comes to medical care.
What is HITECH?
Most people are familiar with HIPAA, but it’s smart to understand HITECH as well, especially if you work in the healthcare field. It deals with all sorts of privacy and security issues in the medical industry, but it also presents a lot of logical suggestions for dealing with health information in the internet age. And even if you don’t work in the field, at least understanding that it’s a benefit that can be used to your advantage can put your mind at ease.
The Importance of Advance Directives
Many people are familiar with the idea of a living will, but you can take that a step further and fill out advance directives that are even more powerful examples of you taking charge of your future. Because medical emergencies can put you out of touch of the ability to make decisions for yourself, having an advance directive available (and even online now) will provide you with a way to allow your opinion about your future to supersede that of the medical compulsion to just keep you alive no matter what.
How Health Insurance Works
Especially with the new Affordable Care system, understanding the technology behind signing up for health insurance is a requirement to be a solid U.S. citizen. With very little effort, you can now get coverage, but you do have to, at the very least, understand how a basic website works and how to navigate it.
Understanding Technology From a Life Quality Standpoint
There’s amazing medical technology out there that can keep you physically alive even if you’re functionally braindead. That’s spectacular science, but it also brings up a quality of life issue. Once a person reaches the non-responsive state, do they want to continue living?
Catching Digital Errors
Because so much of your medical information is now in digital format, it makes it far easier to look for errors as well. All that means for you is that every time you visit your doctor, you should go over all of your records and make sure there aren’t any anomalies.
