Technology and healthcare are increasingly intertwining, fostering a more personalized delivery of care. Embracing technology trends gives providers the edge to offer patient-centric healthcare.
Gail Borgatti Croall, MD, chief medical officer for Dublin, Ohio-based HealthSpot, a virtual healthcare delivery platform, pinpoints data management, sensors and personalized healthcare as the major tech trends infiltrating the healthcare industry.
"The integration of telehealth, mobile health devices and data will shift healthcare from being responsive to preventative, from directed to consumer-centric, from generalized to personalized," says Dr. Croall.
Here are four key technology strategies to implement in the healthcare field.
1. Manage data well. Data management allows providers to gain a deeper understanding of their patients' conditions. Data includes socioeconomic, demographic, behavior patterns, environmental data and referral patterns. With critical analysis of the data, providers may predict and intervene more effectively.
2. Implement wearable technology. Wearable technology can measure anything from steps to heart rate. The technology is advancing, with sensors placed in medications alerting physicians when patients take the medicine. Patches can monitor heart rate, temperature and oxygenation at all hours of the day.
3. Customize care. Physicians may want to personalize treatment plans for specific patients. Consumers seek convenience and quality, and providers should consider embracing technology to offer patients healthcare that is unique to them. "Ultimately, technology needs to be personalized to be effective," says Dr. Croall. "Consumers want to see their own data and understand their own trends."
4. Take advantage of telehealth. Physicians can now video chat appointments and monitor patients remotely. The advancement of mHealthtechnology will develop better physician-patient relationships, says Dr. Croall. Mobile devices allow providers to monitor patients in real-time, immediately predicting potential harm. The industry will move away from a customer-service industry to a more sophisticated communication network that places the patient at the center.
Dr. Croall explains more than 93 percent of Americans live within five minutes of their pharmacies, meaning "we will start to see more shifts of lower intensity care to the retail pharmacy setting and higher intensity care…patients being seen at the secondary and tertiary setting, allowing for better workflow and smart workforce utilization."
Consumers seek this convenience and this may result in "more integrated care as more stakeholders see the important benefits of connected care and the negative impact of fragmented care." The future holds patients managing their health, from scheduling appointments online to tracking their health with mobile technology to understanding their health data. Providers may take advantage of telehealth and other technology trends by predicting possible complications earlier and responding in preventative ways to increase health outcomes.
"Consumer demand will drive change and adoption of new connected technologies, and these drivers will accelerate faster as the burden of healthcare costs is increasingly placed on and shared with consumers," says Dr. Croall.