The Covid-19 pandemic is pushing the medical industry to provide high-quality remote care, and many patients find it easier than ever to consult a doctor. This is undoubtedly a positive development, but it is not a paradigm shift. Contemporary virtual care is not the revolutionary change the industry needs.
Today’s “virtual care” uses technology-video, chat, security, privacy-to mediate the time-constrained relationship between overloaded medical professionals and patients. But it did not acknowledge the fact that most chronic disease care is actually performed outside of daily life, allowing patients to make daily health decisions without adequate support.
What’s wrong with modern virtual care?
Virtual Care 1.0-we can consider it as the first attempt-does bring significant benefits to patients. There is no need to travel to see a doctor, especially for people who are busy, physically unwell, or have limited mobility. This is a significant improvement over the default assumption of in-person appointments. This is also an excellent solution for regular check-in.
However, when it comes to more complex cases (such as chronic diseases), virtual care encounters the same basic problems as simulated care. Patients with chronic diseases need 24×7 support, but they only receive a few minutes of expert attention every month. Then they were released into the world and made complex medical decisions on their own.
For example, consider the case of a person with type 1 diabetes, which affects more than 1.6 million Americans.Research by Scholars at Stanford University It was found that they had to make an average of 180 diabetes-related decisions every day.
Allowing these people to make these decisions without support will not work. 80% of people with type 1 diabetes do not meet the recommended HbA1c target, and they are two to three times more likely to experience fatigue, anxiety, stress, and depression than other members of the public.
The manpower required to truly help people with type 1 diabetes in their daily lives is incomprehensible—it’s just a situation. No matter how much technology is provided to optimize their work processes, there are not enough professional doctors in the world to undertake so many nursing services.
Patient-centered
Really improving the care received by patients with chronic diseases requires reimagining the care system, rather than simply digitizing the traditional analog healthcare delivery model. One concept that the current system ignores is that people with long-term illnesses have already acted as their own care providers in many ways. They listen to expert advice through interaction with medical institutions, and then through trial and error to understand what is useful to them.
The future-virtual care 2.0 – Must build on this understanding and focus on new KPIs: patient autonomy, a person’s ability to treat themselves effectively and have confidence in their decisions.
What changes need to be made to use Virtual Care 2.0?
We have the data, technology, and ingenuity needed to significantly increase patient autonomy, but the industry needs three key ways to achieve this goal. The first is respect for patients. The paternalistic “doctor knows best” attitude often runs through the entire nursing process at the expense of the patient. Although many industries have been obsessed with consumer participation for more than a decade, the medical industry still insists on “persistence” and “compliance.”
Adopt an attitude so that patients are not just “passengers” in their own care, but a driving force that will produce better results and push the industry forward.
The second area that the industry needs to study is curiosity.Rather than blaming patients for non-compliance or non-compliance with proposed solutions, we also need to investigate why They did not follow the advice (usually because it was impossible) and restructured the problem in a solvable way. This will allow us to transcend pure medical problems and enter the complex and chaotic real world. Only by responding to the challenges faced by patients-medical and other aspects-can the industry hope to provide effective solutions.
The third area to change is humility. We know much less about chronic diseases (such as diabetes) than we thought, let alone people with these diseases. For example, it is generally believed that diabetic patients do not care about their health, or that “obesity and laziness” does not reflect a person’s life experience-many people follow the doctor’s instructions and still do not achieve the health results they want. Innovator’s arrogance It is the main obstacle to innovation here.
Future care is patient-centered
Simply extending the current medical situation to the virtual world cannot solve its deepest limitations, especially in the care of chronic diseases. Using technology to enable patients to effectively manage their own care will lead to better outcomes and may end the unacceptable trend of poor chronic disease care outcomes.
