Revolutionizing patient care is the future of healthcare. The primary goal of healthcare technology is to improve patient outcomes and provide patients with flexible, personalized, and more accessible healthcare. To achieve these goals, recent efforts have been made to transform existing healthcare processes and systems into integrated, scalable, patient-centric, and high-quality care delivery offerings. Multiple trends are driving the need for, and efforts on, the part of patients and providers to improve healthcare delivery. Patients are increasingly educated and proactive in their own health and have begun to demand best-in-class healthcare treatment options. Attractive care options include high quality and the ability to address health needs, regardless of a single location, payer, or schedule. Furthermore, patients often suffer from multiple ongoing health issues and can transition from low-risk to high-risk due to factors such as new behaviors or diagnoses. Accordingly, there have been increasing calls for a transition from the existing, volume-based care delivery paradigm to a paradigm that rewards healthcare stakeholders based on patient health outcomes and the value of care delivery.
The healthcare landscape is changing rapidly. As the healthcare industry is both labor and data-intensive, the importance of reducing healthcare costs and improving healthcare quality is drawing attention to new tools and methodologies necessary for reforming the field. A number of trends are currently impacting patient care. One trend is increasing patient engagement, or the active participation of patients, such as communication with care providers and treatment adherence. Another is the movement towards converting healthcare systems from fee-for-service to value-based care. Digital health advances have leveraged this trend and overcoming these advantages can prove to be effective in today’s changing landscape, but also present unforeseen problems.
The Role of Technology in Healthcare
Technological advancements in recent years have not only transformed how businesses are run, but also healthcare and the method through which patient care is provided. The goal of healthcare technology is to provide efficient, accessible healthcare services for every patient. Advancements in healthcare technology are constantly resulting in improved clinical outcomes. One of the biggest ways technology has improved healthcare is through Electronic Health Records. These digital records transfer easily from one state and one facility to another, which improves patient management. In addition to EHR, telemedicine and remote monitoring allow physicians and other healthcare staff to consult with patients and other healthcare providers through technology.
Technology, in general, enhances the utilization of various systems, such as scheduling, billing, and the retrieval of documents. As a result, the healthcare system may function more efficiently, and patients may benefit from shorter waiting times. For the patient, EHR technology creates convenience and a better understanding of their own health. It also allows for sharing and storing health information. In general, the use of EHR technology evolves in parallel with the growth of relevant concepts of knowledge management and data sharing. Physicians also adopt digital reminder systems, computerized medical protocols, computerized image interpretation, and other programs because they aid in reducing mistakes and improving efficiency in addition to analyzing and comparing many medical cases by adopting programs and automation. Telemetric systems enable patients and healthcare professionals to constantly monitor the affected person while performing other activities simultaneously.
Electronic Health Records
The use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is an important part of how healthcare is delivered in today’s world. EHRs are designed to store and manage patient information in a digital format, thus allowing for better accessibility and safer coordination of care when the time comes to transfer such information from one healthcare provider to the next. Some of the features of EHRs include the ability to view the entire patient history and information, share such information using a digital format instead of a paper format, and identify and assist with preventive care using data analytics and quick digital notifications. EHRs were designed to be used as a way for patients to view and participate in their health but have not gained as much use due to difficulties with implementation. One of the main challenges regarding EHRs is that it is hard and costly to implement them. Once the EHRs are implemented and working, patient data privacy remains a significant challenge due to cybersecurity. Successful EHR implementation has made huge progress in positively impacting both patient care and outcomes. EHRs in pharmaceuticals, which are specific to handling patients’ medications and pharmaceutical care, can be accessed not only by pharmacists but also by physicians and other healthcare workers. An additional issue is that a lack of interoperability of EHRs leads to patient information and data not being shared between different healthcare systems. EHRs have improved providers’ ability to document their patients’ records since the overall documentation was good. Researchers also found that EHR technology contributed to improved care for participants by promoting patients’ quality with integrated and available information both curatively and preventively. EHRs continue to evolve today, where innovations in drugs and treatment delivery, especially in pharmaceutical care, are expected. EHR systems continue to refine, and a new Electronic Health Management Information System has evolved, helping hospitals move from analog to digital. Furthermore, a future challenge includes choosing these platforms and applications carefully so as not to reduce the improvements in care that are already happening, given that many family doctors enjoy the current electronic health system that they are using. EHRs will play an essential role in the continuum of how pharmacists and healthcare providers use and deliver healthcare and are expected to be used as tools with artificial intelligence that have algorithms predicting what patients may need. More research needs to be done to see how pharmaceutical care and its documentation could improve future EHRs.
Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring
There are a number of new and emerging healthcare technologies that are working to improve patient care in a digital era. Telemedicine, or telehealth services, and remote patient monitoring have been extensively adopted in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth is the widely adopted technology of virtual visits and diagnosis, and now often can include treatment and prescribing medication when necessary. Telehealth visit service providers are often using cameras to create a sense of immediacy and presence in a clinical examination. In addition to the visual element of physical examination, telemedicine platforms have an auditory component that serves as another way to remotely hear a patient’s heartbeat or breathing sounds.
Remote patient monitoring devices are used to automatically collect patients’ health data outside of traditional healthcare systems, often 24/RPM devices are making patients more independent when connected with EMS and specialists. The managed device data helps to keep medications and doses of treatment within appropriate parameters and prevents worsening of disease. Patients with chronic illnesses are benefiting from the use of such devices, as the data offer a more accurate reflection of their health. Additionally, these services can reduce medical office visits because they decrease the need to go for blood pressure and glucose checks. The ultimate goal is to engage the patient in their own care and prevent progression of a chronic illness, including any comorbid conditions. Remote patient monitoring technology is application agnostic, which means it can be used across specialties for in-hospital, at home, and mobile monitoring.
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
Understanding the ways in which AI has started to or will increasingly be applied within healthcare is critical to better grasp the revolutionary potential that this field has. The widespread application of AI within healthcare could revolutionize the way in which we experience the sector as a service, and it could fundamentally alter the way in which healthcare service providers will need to equip themselves for the future. There are a wide variety of applications across each sector of healthcare, including, but not limited to, predictive analytics capitalizing on vast data sets to more effectively inform patients on health outcomes, improving the accuracy and speed of diagnostic procedures, and improving the effectiveness of personalized medicines. A further possibility that the ubiquity of AI integration presents is the automation of many of the administrative functions that frontline healthcare workers need to carry out, in order to free up their time to actually treat patients. This list is not exhaustive, and it is equally likely that the future will hold possibilities that nobody has yet conceived of.
Given the ethical implications of AI in healthcare, it is of course not all rosy. There is relatively entrenched fear of the primary concerns being run in the knowledge that company ownership of such facilities at scale could lead to significant inbuilt bias in favor of financial interests, rather than medical or patient ones. Given the lack of incentive within the healthcare sector, this might not be quite as pronounced. More generally, perhaps the greatest hurdle that AI in healthcare will face is the same as with other sectors of its applications – reaching a point at which the industry is robust enough to be integrated heavily into existing healthcare infrastructure. Larger institutions, for whom regulatory compliance will be a significantly greater issue, may see less disruption than smaller ones in moving over. In addition, reaching a robust enough set of data infrastructure to provide accurate results relies on further investment, and then implementing equally sophisticated data extraction services to enter into the system. Nonetheless, the future seems an unusually strong driver for AI in healthcare, and we can expect AI doctors, regardless of what they look like. The more AI could be integrated into processes to moderate human decision-making and make healthcare more focused, the faster we might enjoy a better set of regulations around outspoken ethical concerns regarding its development.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations
There are numerous challenges that will arise and need to be addressed in a digital health revolution. Ethical considerations include patient consent as algorithms become more complex and opaque, as well as issues of consent when implementing automation in practice. Many people recognize the need for machine learning and artificial intelligence to ethically use good data; however, its discriminatory biases could also be passed down into its predictive functions, causing disparities in diagnosis and quality of care. Moreover, as automation can initially reduce evidence-supported guidelines compliance, this may also have a negative impact on equity in healthcare. Thus, individual consent from the patient, in addition to oversight by regulatory bodies, is necessary to ensure that innovation is balanced with lasting and beneficial patient health practices.
Certainly, a major challenge and ethical issue is that of patient consent in using digital health initiatives. Implementation in the private sector should include options to remove patient consent until applicable regulations and standards have been developed and implemented. The use of big data in pursuit of precision health could also have harmful effects due to its discriminatory biases. Patients need to consent, and ethical considerations warrant regulatory oversight from countries supporting the provision of these services. While much is known about definitions of duties and responses of care in a healthcare setting, experiencing a new technology or a potential innovation within a healthcare environment can provide nuanced new insights that theory cannot anticipate. Furthermore, case studies allow for a new level of transparency in the complexities found within clinical settings. Crucially, they also promote conversation and engagement that are integral to balanced regulatory changes. Institutions that focus on innovation should share these instances with ethicists, policymakers, and regulators on a regular basis. An ongoing verbally engaging conversation also needs to continually occur between staff and patients. Regulatory bodies that plan to oversee digital health initiatives do well to engage with these case studies for a more balanced and ethical response in changing practices. With this new future in healthcare, security should underlie all advancement. Health regulators can expect ethical considerations connecting to cybersecurity as a part of any digital health initiative application. A regular and ongoing dialogue between health regulators and digital health entrepreneurs can lead to actual quality security outcomes that safeguard patient privacy. The affirmative medical expertise that big data enables comes hand in hand with many ethical and sociopolitical challenges. Throughout the world, we have yet to reach a consensus on the availability of secure innovative digital health options. Patience and strong governing bodies might give us much-needed time for reflection, while healthcare practitioners gain evidence on enhancements in actual outcomes for care. If change can progress simply through smaller steps, there are still exciting options to explore. Only through collaboration will big data have the desired success.
In conclusion, the ongoing surge in technology breakthroughs has the strong potential to revolutionize patient care. The improved information flow that will underpin this transformation includes the capacity of a fragmented healthcare system to ‘pull together’ the healthcare journey of individual patients into a useful whole. Even the ‘old’ technology of electronic health records is quite revolutionary when fully implemented, and this long-standing promise of the future is also imminent. Telemedicine can ‘beam’ advice from specialists to community doctors, but this advice is heavily based on prediction and statistically inferred norms. The patient’s own health journey provides innumerable additional details: added information flowing backward to the advice, and combining with and correcting coarse trends and norms. From both these and many other examples, it is a call to action for all stakeholders – policymakers, managers, clinicians, researchers, and consumers – to make efficient and effective use of this exciting technological potential. Cost savings are an added bonus, but most importantly, these technological advances can help us improve the health of patients, particularly in rural and remote areas.
We need to seize these opportunities so that inappropriate innovation, financial incentives, or power imbalances do not lead us into expensive healthcare failure. The ethical considerations include the scarcity of privacy, confidentiality, and security. Some areas require a slow, cautious, evidence-based approach, but we need to work towards societal acceptability of these technologies. There is growing evidence of positive patient outcomes and efficiencies with these innovative technologies, and research is currently focusing on areas such as patient empowerment, self-management, and other user- and acceptance-related issues. Some of this potential has already been realized. Demonstrating the maximally envisioned impacts of this technological innovation, however, is in the hands of us all as individuals or society: we can fail to engage healthcare staff in its uptake, and the technology won’t be used effectively. We can fail to conduct well-controlled research to demonstrate its efficacy and efficiency, and such research won’t be conducted. Providing this evidence of maximally envisioned impact remains a challenge to maximizing the benefits of this potentially revolutionary technology. Healthcare informatics professionals are being charged with investigating the operational implications of these new best practices and with seeking their implementation within healthcare. The only viable and likely way forward is for advanced technological developers and healthcare revolutionaries to collaborate closely to evolve and adapt these technological capabilities so that they can empower clinicians and policy researchers to sustain and build a truly consumer-focused healthcare model.
