The Empowered Health Consumer
Technology and healthcare are two behemoths that will continue to cross paths. Technology is nimble. It continually has advancements in big data, AI, and machine learning. Healthcare is not so nimble. Large health organizations are starting to tap into the teeming tech innovations, but there are many forms of resistance (budget, infrastructure, buy-in, etc.). However, with a consumer and industry push towards prevention instead of treatment, investors and CEOs are feeling the two world colliding with great inertia.
New technologies are changing the healthcare landscape, and they are just scratching the surface.
While this all sounds good — the consumer is always worth mentioning. The consumers are us. Every human being.
Everyone is part of the expanding healthcare ecosystem. We all have a body, and most of us want to take care of them. Though the idea of using data mixed with the right information to push certain healthy behaviors is not new, it is one of those fields that is changing with time.
As Ravin Jesuthasan speaks to this here, he states:
One of the things we’ve consistently seen over the last few years is an excess of 50% of people around the world would be comfortable using digital technology to help shape their behaviors, to help guide them to improve their wellness.
This is pretty cool. Health consumers are signaling to the market that there is a paradigm shift in their needs. This alteration demands technology to be taken to the level of preventative care and self-improvement. I also believe this area will open up to a lot more research and development in human behavior.
Distance medicine is also making some improvements. Your neighborhood drug store will soon expand healthcare connections with telemedicine. For example, in New York, Walgreens teamed up with New York-Presbyterian’s to deliver world-class, convenient care at self-service kiosks. In the future, consumers will get doctor care along with drug prescriptions all in one trip. Moreover, there are many doctor appointment apps where you can see a doctor face-to-face in real time.
The internet will break the barriers of the hospital supply chain. In the future, the consumer will have more power to be proactive. Instead of treatment, there will be prevention. Instead of talking about disease, there will be talks furthering wellness.
However, as with any data backed technology, consumer privacy is a priority.
This data can offer tremendous insights into disease, habits, and genetics. As you mix in the insurance companies, healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies, you can easily imagine a large interwoven network or information and decision-making.
With great advantages, there are great potential pitfalls. Securing data transfer between all of these agents, establishing concrete ownership of particular data, determining conflict of interest between these health entities, and anonymizing payment data, etc. These need to be solved before any large scale deployment is considered safe.
With all this being said, bioinformaticians and data scientists will play a crucial role in fitting these technologies into the healthcare ecosystem. Tech is here to stay, and it is the professional’s duty to provide patients with the safest solutions that will optimize value. Physical and mental health are two pieces to the same puzzle. As a society, we need to collectively help each other to improve and sustain that beneficial behavioral growth.
