The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a whirlwind change to healthcare and ushered in a new era of digital health that redefines patient care and will continue to be a top priority for the industry for many years to come. Here are my predictions for 2022.
Enhancements in Biometric Data Collection and What It Means for Patients and doctor
Monitoring a patient’s health from the comfort of their home is getting easier. In fact, home-based wearable and implantable biosensors such as smart jewelry like Oura and Apple Watch, continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), KardiaMobile EKG apps, CardioMEMS devices, and Bluetooth-enabled medical devices such as stethoscopes ) has become more common and more acceptable to consumers. As home or mobile doctor monitoring continues to grow, the demand for this technology will only increase, driving adoption by healthcare practitioners. While these consumer-grade biometrics, including trackers and wearables, have made a huge impact by allowing physicians to track patients’ activity levels, calories burned, sleep time, and even their shopping lists outside of the clinical setting, But doctors are still very concerned about the information and statistics collected.
At this point, many healthcare practitioners view consumer wearable biometric devices as screening tools and are looking to confirmatory testing using more traditional medical devices such as electrocardiograms to verify that they are sufficient to add to a patient’s health record information, or make informed decisions about treatments or lifestyle changes.
With artificial intelligence (AI) technology enabled, these “consumer-grade” products will be transformed into “medical-grade” products. As a result, physicians and hospitals will try to create ways to integrate data into healthcare systems and electronic medical records (EMRs) for a more integrated patient journey. Many issues may arise during this transition, including the quality, cleanliness, and appropriateness of this data, as well as EMR and the risk of information overload for healthcare professionals.
Digital Health Will Transform HIPAA Compliance
Patient data is sure to increase as consumers continue to monitor their health at home. This is very beneficial in helping to manage and understand the health of patients outside the doctor’s office. Patients no longer need to visit a clinical setting to obtain this data. However, as patients continue to measure their health through devices, patient data could be compromised given the current limited privacy protections for consumer-grade data.
Today, only covered entities (health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, providers using electronic transactions, etc.) are required to comply with HIPAA regulations.
The law does not authorize the regulation of private companies or public agencies through HIPAA, so wearable medical device companies are not obligated to comply with HIPAA.
So this is a very big topic in our industry; HIPAA compliance needs to be updated to reflect industry changes and protect patient data using remote and wearable medical devices.
Healthcare will continue to evolve, and so will the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The digital health space is rapidly expanding, and the FDA is facing historic questions about the future of medical software in a post-pandemic world. I believe the government is open to the future of medicine. They have begun reviewing medical video games and approved EndeavorRX, the first prescription medical video game in 2020 to help children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), demonstrating that they are aligned with technological developments within medical health care industry. Reviewing and approving medical video games shows that the FDA takes on a lot of infrastructure and embraces emerging medical software.
In conclusion, the healthcare industry still has a lot of work to do. With the help of artificial intelligence technology and the recent explosion of data from consumer medical devices, patient health information will be at risk until HIPAA updates its compliance.
The growing importance of providing telehealth services
Telehealth is no longer seen as a luxury, but as an integral part of a health system’s care strategy. Telehealth is here to stay, and healthcare organizations should invest in the right technology to stay relevant in the evolving world of virtual healthcare — including ensuring patients receive the same quality of visits in a virtual environment as they do in a doctor’s office.
Recent surveys have shown an increase in patient preference for telehealth services. For example, Applause, a digital tech company that tests digital innovation best practices for the healthcare industry, conducted a global survey in July 2021 investigating telehealth services. The data confirmed that 46% of the 5,000 respondents had attended at least one virtual doctor visit, and 84% had used telehealth to avoid in-person visits during the pandemic. Notably, 63% of respondents said they will continue to use telehealth more than they did before the pandemic, and 77% of patients said they enjoy using telecare.
As healthcare continues to evolve and pandemics are avoided in a world exploited through technology, we are seeing changes in traditional mechanisms such as how care is delivered, how patients interact with their healthcare providers, how the FDA evaluates diagnoses and treatments , and even how we learn and communicate with each other. The future is a mix of old and new, and we’re all excited to see the future of digital health and its benefits to the U.S. healthcare landscape.
Photo: Feodora Chiosea, Getty Images
