Importance of Wellness
The world health organization defines wellness as not just absence of disease but also the overall mental and physical wellbeing of an individual. This means that wellness is more of an individual choice by a person to lead a healthy life. Maintaining a good level of wellness is very important since it shapes our emotional response to factors all around us. This responses shape our actions which in turn serve our health since proper wellness leads to a less stressful life and generally a better living habits. Wellness can also be described as the absence of disease, emotional health, mental health, social health and spiritual health. This further clarifies how broad wellness is. (Stavely, 2015) The concept of wellness has greatly influenced peoples feeding habits, the exercises they do and for how long and generally their travel patterns. The social desire by people to lead better lives has sparked an interest in entrepreneurs making the idea of wellness an industry.
The need for better health and wellness practices has sparked the need for technological advancement to ensure better treatment even over long distance. Some of the methods used to improve health and wellness include telemedicine, the use of mobile phone applications, use of wearable remotely monitored devices, and mobility among others. Technological experts have also formulated methods of digitizing medical records. Telemedicine can be described as video call between a doctor and a patient. This ensures that doctors can assess and monitor their patients over long distances this a method that can as well be used to transmit data. Telemedicine has benefited the general society in three major ways: first the amount of time wasted cueing waiting for doctors has been greatly reduced, people from rural settings can access medical advice remotely and lastly, the process is very efficient and thus lives saved have increased. Unlike telemedicine, mobile applications do not ensure one on one conversations, the applications act as the doctors. This technological advancement is very beneficial though can be prone to misguided opinions from underqualified technicians. Advancement in technology has also brought about advancement in the quality of filing systems in hospitals. Digitizing medical records has helped in that the information stored is sent to cloud storage and can be accessed from any branch at any given time with ease. This also ensures easy flow of work since a file opened in one computer can be opened in another at the same instance. This saves a lot of time and is more efficient than paper filing system. Lastly on the impact of information and communication technology on Health and Wellness is the use of wearable devices. Wearable devices ensure that information on patients is sent in real time. This ensures a lot of time is saved and any health conditions on the patient are handled promptly. This devises also help the patient to relax mentally since their medical conditions are being closely monitored. Though the pros of technological advancement on wellness outweigh the cons, we still have one major con. This is the risk of the information stored in cloud storage getting hacked. The hackers can use the information acquired in identity thefts.
Lastly on factors affecting wellness technologically we are going to look into genetically modified organisms (gmos). Gmos are organisms whose genetic make has been changed so as to acquire the desired characteristics. Gmos have affected the wellness of individuals greatly (Qutab, 2017). The impact of genetically modified organisms, according to one green planet, are generally negative and dangerous to both the consumers, the famers and the environment. They further add that these organisms are only beneficial to the co-operations manufacturing them.