There is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic is the spark that ignited a revolution that will change the traditional way of care in this country. There are many pain points and inefficiencies that must be addressed. Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) believe that the healthcare industry is on the cusp of change and this partnership will be a key driver of innovation. This collaboration will usher in an era of technological advancement in healthcare that we call the future of care.
challenges to overcome
Today, many caregivers are trapped in harsh environments that inhibit the ability to effectively serve patients. Providers require a large flow of patients to remain financially viable, with limited time with each patient. Inefficient technologies such as traditional electronic health records (EHRs) take too much time to interact with the EHR rather than with the patient. This has resulted in significant patient and provider dissatisfaction, reduced efficiency and increased provider and patient stress.
Despite these inefficiencies, pathways for delivering care had been established before the pandemic. For the hospital, the path is delivered in person within its four walls. The pandemic has disrupted that model, first by filling facilities and preventing elective procedures, and then by forcing people to switch to telecare. The impact of Covid on the healthcare system has also demonstrated that data must be analysed and used more effectively to create new pathways of care.
Technology – current problems, future solutions
EHRs have evolved from their original use as a data repository and documentation system to capture data to support health system billing activities. Today, these systems help facilitate the optimization of the care delivery process and clinical workflow. However, like all technologies, EHR as we know it has reached the end of its life cycle.
According to a recent Gartner report, EHRs alone (also known as 3rd generation EHRs) are no longer sufficient to meet the demands of large-scale digital and personalized care. Rather, the EHR is a foundational function that must connect to a richer ecosystem of modern digital health applications, systems, services, and devices to deliver high-quality, affordable patient-centered care. The next generation of EHRs must evolve into clinical data platforms that support the use of evidence-based medicine at the point of care.
Unlike earlier single-IT approaches, this new platform is digital, modular, and more adaptable to business changes. To keep pace with changing business, clinical and consumer expectations, healthcare provider CIOs are moving from a single IT (ie, traditional EHR) to a digital health platform (DHP) architecture. The EHR must now evolve into a platform that supports the DHP model.
Many of these new EHRs are designed with an open architecture as part of a move away from overarching and inflexible systems. Latest EHR not by design As a native open architecture platform. Some emerging EHRs have native Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) at their core. FHIR-based EHRs can be integrated into best-in-class systems to enable advanced analytics, virtual care, improved patient engagement, and population health management. These are key steps towards customized care and a health model that emphasizes pay-for-value rather than fee-for-service.
Part of this major shift is a change in how the medical world views IT itself. The past few decades have seen a revolution in computing and communications. IT is the new utility, as necessary as clean water and electricity. Much like utilities, in today’s data-driven environment, information systems (i.e. servers, networks, mobile devices, tablets, etc.) and applications that support business ecosystems have become an essential part of care systems delivering their products and services .
It will take longer for this view to take hold in medicine. But today’s care organizations must accept the reality that their IT infrastructure (new utilities) is critical to the spread of business intelligence (or information currency) and is critical to staying competitive. Every business and clinical decision today has an IT component attached to it.
New applications powered by patient data are coming, and they are truly amazing. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) will become the norm, not the exotic.Easy-to-use client application that generates extensive physiological data photoplethysmography technology and connecting to clinical data platforms, hinting at possibilities. These wearables will revolutionize chronic care management as well as hospital monitoring. The virtual reality platform combined with 5G throughput will eventually allow patients to interact with their doctor’s avatars, making virtual visits more realistic.
The addition of haptic technology will enable the performance of remote body checks. Artificial intelligence (AI) will reduce costs by improving the accuracy of clinical decision-making and improving the identification of population health data. If this seems like science fiction, consider the concepts of self-parking or self-driving cars 30 years ago that have become the reality of today. This powerful emerging IT and device portfolio will increase patient access to healthcare and significantly improve health equity.
CMO and CIO collaboration
The line between paramedics and medical IT used to be clear. In fact, the cliché that most doctors are hopeless about IT emerges. This has changed dramatically, and today the lines are blurring. Physicians are being forced to learn IT to do their jobs, and healthcare organizations are fighting the assumption that healthcare workflows need to adapt to technology. It should be the other way around – HIT needs to integrate medical processes.
The role of the healthcare CIO has also changed. The need to update delivery paths, accommodate remote work and better analyze data is making CIOs more collaborative. Input to decision-making comes from outside the CIO’s office, from more astute practitioners and other stakeholders. With the rapid development of technology, the standard of understanding on both sides has increased.
This collaboration heralds making the right IT decisions and not being distracted by the latest bells and whistles. Facilities need to go beyond Gen 3 EHRs and employ technologies that extend their capabilities beyond the traditional uses of these systems. Everyone involved in strategic healthcare should be involved, and hopefully this editorial is a small example.
Gone are the nostalgic memories of your trusted doctor at your bedside carrying a little black satchel. The healthcare industry is catching up with other industries in analyzing and activating patient data to increase efficiency and enhance clinical care. This is the way forward to personalize high-quality healthcare at scale for a rapidly aging population.
“Future Care” is here! The increasing use of technology in healthcare and its potential to disrupt our industry is exciting!
Photo: Feodora Chiosea, Getty Images
