From wearable devices to telehealth solutions, digital wellness tools are designed to help patients and providers overcome some key barriers to quality healthcare. This infrastructure helps to make healthcare more accessible to broader populations, provides personalized solutions, and enables patients to gain a better understanding of their health.
Known as digital health literacy, understanding how to use these tools is key for both general consumers and healthcare workers – but why is it also so important in the modern workplace?
What is Digital Health Literacy?
Digital health literacy is the ability to find and evaluate health information online. Whether via a computer, phone, tablet, or other system powered by the internet, this covers seven distinct domains, including a person’s:
- Ability to process information
- Engagement in their own health
- Ability to engage with digital health services
- Feelings of safety and control
- Motivation to engage with digital services
- Access to working systems
- Access to digital services that meet their unique needs.
Being digital health literate also involves understanding how to use wellness technologies, such as wearable devices and health apps, that are designed to improve fitness levels or enhance sleep quality.
Those skilled in using these tools can then make informed decisions about their own healthcare. For instance, they may participate in remote consultations via telemedicine services, without needing to travel great distances or endure long waiting times for in-person physician appointments.
These are both key pain points that may stop patients from accessing essential healthcare services for treating or managing chronic conditions.
Benefits of Digital Health Literacy for Employees
Wondering why you should prioritize digital health literacy in the workplace? Here are three key benefits of encouraging employees to embrace the latest health and wellness technology:
Facilitates Remote Monitoring
Being digital health literate allows staff in the healthcare industry to harness the power of remote monitoring. This involves tracking patients’ vital signs, including blood pressure, heart function, blood sugar levels, sleep quality, and even daily exercise habits.
With these metrics available at the touch of a computer button or phone screen, remote monitoring makes diagnosing health conditions much quicker and easier. Healthcare workers can then use this data to create tailored treatment plans considering patients’ unique needs and preferences.
Physicians and psychologists will also take their daily routines into account, including work and sleeping habits, meaning that patients are more likely to adhere to the plan and improve their health outcomes.
Digital health literacy also allows continuous monitoring to see whether a wellness intervention is working. If not, healthcare providers can then take further action, such as increasing medication dosage or altering an exercise program.
Relieves Workplace Stress
The benefits of digital health literacy extend beyond healthcare settings by also helping to prevent burnout in any modern workplace.
Work-related burnout typically develops when employees deal with continued extreme stress at work, which can be caused by excessive workloads, tight deadlines, not feeling heard, and a lack of support.
When left untreated, burnout has a negative impact on employees’ mental health, causing symptoms such as energy depletion and a lack of motivation at work. Research indicates that extreme stress at work can also manifest itself physically, including in the form of poor respiratory health, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and early mortality.
However, knowing how to use digital health tools such as online medical databases and AI-powered symptom checkers makes it easier for employees to access comprehensive treatment options for burnout.
One key creator of these options is Kilo Health, a leading digital wellness company that aims to help people worldwide live healthier lives. The digital health visionaries produce and invest in an extensive portfolio of products, from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) programs to habit-tracking apps, that revolutionize the management of chronic conditions such as stress.
Boost Productivity
Another huge advantage of having digitally literate staff is a significant increase in productivity.
Employees who feel empowered to seek vital health information through tools such as those provided by Kilo Health will know how to better care for their mental and physical well-being. They’ll also learn preventative measures to stop increasing stress levels and tackle the problem before it becomes chronic, helping them feel more motivated at work.
This includes setting boundaries in the workplace and fostering good communication with colleagues and managers. It could also involve transitioning to a shorter working week or asking for flexible working arrangements. In fact, studies show that remote employees work an extra 16.8 days each year on average!
Explore Kilo Health’s product portfolio on their website today to discover a variety of digital wellness tools that provide seamless healthcare solutions for businesses and individuals.
Also Read: The Future of Healthcare: Online GPs and Digital Prescriptions in Australia
