Evolution, Not Revolution: Health in a Digital World
Technology and healthcare are completely entwined. Sometimes though, integration between the two disciplines does not happen as quickly as technologists would like. Technology, driven by competitive forces, innovates quickly, but in healthcare the requirement to walk safely before we even think about running is of paramount importance. Being an early adopter in the consumer electronics space carries only financial risks, in healthcare it can be a matter of life and death. Many of the developments we’ll see in 2016 are extensions of what went before as the industry reforms and evolves.
Improving the User Experience
The importance of a positive and intuitive user experience in healthcare cannot be understated whether you are designing tools for clinicians or for consumers.
Healthcare practitioners are highly trained on a wide range of tools in the workplace, however, advances in technology are helping to introduce new tools and software at a faster rate than ever before. Staying on top of all of that whilst delivering care can be a huge challenge. A failure to use the equipment properly could have catastrophic results.
When creating healthcare technology for clinicians, designers need to consider some basic guidelines. First, that the navigation is simple and intuitive. Without proper navigation and well-designed search functionality, people get lost. Second, that data input and tracking are crystal clear. Third, physicians are mobile, and so the tech must be just as mobile. Finally, that the tech is compliant with healthcare regulations in its intended market of use.
For consumers, the user experience needs to be equally clean, simple and intuitive. Last year SoftServe’s UX team developed three innovative UX prototypes for health management for our clients, and we expect more to follow this year.
Healthcare is all about human behavior and the modifications made to that. We’re going to see tremendous advancements in that experience going forward in 2016 as patient engagement becomes ever more important.
Clinical Intelligence and Data Science
Over 90 percent of the world’s data has been generated in the last three years and healthcare practitioners are bombarded with data from research papers and information from EMRs. As a result of recent and impeding regulatory practice changes, such as the 21st Century Cures Act, the intelligence that’s been developed in recent times is going to significantly improve in the coming years.
If this tidal wave of data is harnessed effectively it will have a dramatic effect on healthcare. It will turn medical records into clinical insights, enable much greater accuracy in terms of diagnosis, and enable predictive analytics and modelling. Data science as a practice in the healthcare industry will grow significantly.
Healthcare Consumers Facing Artificial Intelligence
For years now consumers have been using the internet to access medical information. Inaccurate or badly interpreted information can be detrimental, however, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have placed a good deal of power in the hands of the consumer making self-diagnosis and a prescribed plan of action or treatment for some minor ailments more than possible.
AI could also be used to support medication adherence. One company in the U.S. does exactly that. AiCure is a startup that uses AI on patient’s mobile devices to confirm medication ingestion support in clinical trials and high-risk populations. AiCure’s HIPAA-compliant software captures and analyzes evidence of medication ingestion. A smartphone’s camera is used to understand whether patients took the medication correctly.
That all said, AI is still in an infant stage of development and will not be able to replace a doctor. The big question is, ‘How can machine learning become a greater enabler for healthcare and its participating players?’ The time is right to ask doctors and pharmaceutical companies what problems they have, and whether they could be solved using AI.
Health Is Personal
Technology has delivered innumerable benefits to healthcare, however, the sheer volume of new technologies and techniques can sometimes confuse matters.
Population health management, defined by healthcare analytics firm Wellcentive as “the aggregation of patient data across multiple health information technology resources, the analysis of that data into a single, actionable patient record, and the actions through which care providers can improve both clinical and financial outcome,” has been gaining a lot traction. However, personalized medicine and the journey of a patient are as important as they have ever been.
More people than ever before are taking an active interest in their own wellbeing, and technology is making that possible. Healthcare practitioners need to take both a big data and personal approach and so striking the right balance between big data solutions and personalized medicine will be a major theme in 2016 as we transition from digital health to health in a digital world.
Originally published at www.mdtmag.com on March 11, 2016.
