Today, technology has become a part of day-to-day life. It has infiltrated virtually every industry, and this includes healthcare. The adoption of modern tools has considerably boosted the sector’s productivity, provided a competitive edge, and streamlined the execution of operations and patient care. Because of this, most hospitals and facilities are now seeking to have similar technologies deployed in their areas of operation.
If you’re looking to launch a health tech startup, make sure it’s cutting edge so that the market appreciates your brand. Note that technology evolves rapidly, and your startup should be able to accommodate the most recent developments. Below are the key tools you should have in your startup.
Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
EHRs are digital information records used by health facilities to record patient data and avoid the tedious use and management of paperwork. These records contain details like:
Patient’s residence
Medications and list of allergies
Medical histories, like immunization dates
Laboratory tests and results
Billing data
Patient health progress notes
A hospital can efficiently and effectively treat a patient when they have accessible and accurate data. A reliable medical device company should also be able to embed the EHR in the operating system of such gadgets to ensure seamless access and retrieval of digital patient records.
And aside from availing data to authorized users instantly, EHRs aid in making decisions on the treatment course. Also, they help in coordinating patient treatment through simplified communication between different departments.
When we look at the healthcare industry over the past 15-20 years, it is clear that drastic improvements have been made because of technology. For example, neurologists can now assess patients experiencing symptoms of a stroke remotely, using a specialized computer system. Wearable devices can track a patient’s vital signs and heart rhythm, alerting both the patient and their care team should any warning signs appear.
Furthermore, technology deployed throughout hospitals and healthcare systems has steadily improved the efficiency of caregivers and allowed patients to return home following an illness, injury, or surgery quicker than ever. Technology has also improved many ways healthcare providers work. These include a broad spectrum of activities, such as the ability to access a schedule, make changes from a mobile device, ensure appropriate supplies are where they need to be and determine when they are needed in order to provide the best possible patient care.
However, from a nurses’ perspective, there has been both a variety of successes and failures using technology in healthcare. Traditionally, everything from documenting patient care, to creating staff schedules, to ordering supplies was done on paper. On the other hand, some hospitals take a much more digitized approach, where every task performed seems to require the assistance of a computer and everything feels much faster paced.
At first glance, the hospitals that adopt all kinds of technology seem to make many improvements in patient care. Overall, it seems that patients have their needs tended to much quicker as a result of the technology solutions. For example, rather than someone tracking down a patient’s nurse when the patient needed assistance, the nurses could easily be reached by a phone that was always clipped to their waistband. The electronic medical record would automatically alert the caregivers if a medication was due, or if the patient had abnormal lab results or vital signs. The daunting task of filling out supply checklists so any supplies that were recently re-ordered had disappeared were no longer a time waster and the changes were amazing.
It began in the 1980s with those wonderful word processors. Electric typewriters bit the dust, and health records could be entered and saved on floppy discs. This was only the beginning.
We’ve come along way, baby. As technology came to disrupt every sector of the economy, healthcare was no exception. Consider all that has happened in this sector and where we are today.
Consolidated health records in the cloud
Anyone who has been to a doctor recently understands this. That doctor may have your entire health history, from multiple providers, all in one place. This technology allows any provider to provide better care protocols according to each individual’s unique history and make recommendations for testing, etc. that will not be duplicating those already done.
Patients can also access their full health histories and provide access to family members as well. This allows more control of patients over their own healthcare and allows them to make better decisions for future care.
Use of big data for treatment protocol decisions
Now that providers have access to health data from all over the globe, they can review research studies, identify effectiveness based on specific symptoms, DNA makeups, and more. The net effect is this: research from all over the world is now available through tools that gather data, churn it, categorize it, and provide reports based on specific queries. Ultimately, better care for all can occur because of this shared data. Amy Castello, a healthcare writer for Trust My Paper, says this: “I conduct a lot of research on a number of healthcare topics. One of the most interesting is the strides that have been made in the use of big data. I see a future of customized care solutions that
Use of AI and machine learning to identify and predict disease outbreaks
When artificial intelligence is applied to bag data gathering, environmental conditions can be analyzed for their contributions to disease outbreaks. Likewise, when there are higher than average disease conditions among certain demographics or in certain geographical areas, AI can analyze data and report common characteristics that may be contributing to those outbreaks.
Development of vaccines
Every year, a number of medical reporting organizations isolate the specific viruses that have resulted in flu outbreaks. All of this information is then physically reported during a consolidated meeting, and decisions are made for the next vaccine composition. Now, all of the data can be digitally reported, and the recommended vaccine compositions determined by the use of artificial intelligence. Ultimately, this can serve to reduce some of the human “guesswork” that now occurs.
IoT devices
A decade ago, patients had to travel to their doctors’ offices for regular checks on chronic conditions. Now, wearable devices provide ongoing data electronically, so that patients are monitored from home, with alerts to their doctors when conditions change that they might warrant an office visit or hospitalization. Getting real-time data of this sort not only increase efficiency of care but results in lower costs for both providers and patients.
In rural America, patients often find themselves more than 30 minutes away from hospitals or care facilities, making it extremely difficult to receive consistent quality care. In fact, there are only 39 physicians per 100,000 people in most rural areas, and specialists are often few and far between. With the average rural area income being more than $9,000 less than the average household income in the U.S., there simply aren’t enough doctors or financial means to see a specialist in a rural setting. This leaves patients waiting three to six months to see a doctor with the appropriate expertise and can lead them to receive care from non-physician providers, who may not have the same clinical training that a physician has. As a practicing family physician in Springfield, Missouri, I experience these challenges almost daily and as technology advances I have found new ways to help my patients to significantly decrease their need for a specialist visit.
Some of the most common health issues I face as a primary care physician that fall outside of my normal scope are dermatological, cardiological or gastrointestinal. In urban areas, patients can easily make appointments at respective specialists, but in a rural area like my own, diagnosis and treatment is often left to the primary care physician. While seeing patients for regular scheduled appointments, I typically encounter 20 dermatological cases a week including conditions like eczema, psoriasis, warts and actinic keratosis.
Although these are common skin conditions, when I encounter these types of conditions I take my years of experience and try to assess to make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan, even if I am not 100 percent certain of the specific condition. Thanks to technology, more and more tools are being developed that can help diagnose the conditions – whether common or more intricate – that primary care physicians may not be expertly trained on. These tools, known as clinical decision support tools, enable us to make more accurate diagnoses at the point of care.
Technology as an aide, not a replacement
When I talk to my colleagues about utilizing technology in our everyday practice, I commonly get pushback because there is fear that technology may put us out of a job. The truth is that clinical decision support tools are becoming essential tools for rural health care providers as the volume of available data increases alongside our responsibility to deliver value-based care. These tools are simply aiding us, not replacing us.
A tool I’ve been using for the past year, VisualDx, allows me to access thousands of medical images that I can use to compare to a patient’s skin rather than referring them to a dermatologist with a long wait time. By looking through multiple examples of the same condition on different body parts and on varying skin tones, I can accurately identify a patient’s condition and recommend a suitable treatment plan. This visual element allows me to be confident in each diagnosis and share my findings with my patients directly in the room.
Earning patient trust with technology use
When a patient comes in with a specialized health issue, they are often hesitant to trust that the diagnoses I’ve made are accurate due to a lack of expertise in a certain area. I recently had a parent bring in their child requesting a referral for dermatologist due to some bumps on her arms. In this case, I already knew the diagnosis as the rash had a very characteristic appearance of molluscum contagiosum. However, the patient’s parent was concerned that I was not knowledgeable enough in this area and was insistent upon a referral. In this case, I was able to use the tool to show her the diagnosis, the time frame that it usually lasted and the recommended treatment. This extra level of reassurance allowed the patient to trust my diagnosis and recognize that a referral was unnecessary.
Guest post by Chris Lukasiak, senior vice president, MyHealthDirect.
Chris Lukasiak
In the U.S., more than a third of patients are referred to a specialist each year, and specialist visits constitute more than half of outpatient visits. Referrals are the link that make this connection between primary and specialty care. From 1999 through 2009 alone, the absolute number of visits resulting in a physician referral increased 159 percent nationally, from 41 million to 105 million. This volume and the frequency of specialty referrals has steadily increased over the years and will only continue. Yet despite this rise in frequency, the referral process itself has been a great frustration for years.
Specialty referrals are a complicated business. There are many moving parts and players that all have a crucial role to play within the process. By breaking it down and looking at exactly what a referral is, who is involved, and the challenges they face, we can then look to fix what is broken. What needs to be improved? And could there be a digital solution?
Let’s start from the very beginning by looking at the stakeholders and their unique interests and concerns.
Patient – The patient experiences a health concern and needs care to get it resolved. The primary physician doesn’t provide the full solution and refers them to a specialist with more expertise about the patient’s condition. This is where the referral occurs. Currently, the extent of the referral is the physician handing a phone number to the patient to call and schedule the appointment. It’s up to the patient to contact the specialist and follow through with the next step, which explains why 20 percent of patients never even schedule the referral appointment.
Provider –There is more than one provider involved in the referral process. First is the referring (or sending) provider and then the target (or receiving) provider. The referring physician is the provider recommending (referring) them to a specialist. The target provider is the specialist that has been recommended. For a health system or physician group, there are obvious financial and quality of care benefits associated when a patient is sent to a trusted provider within network. When patients don’t go to their referral appointment, the health system or physician group loses in several ways. First of all, they have lost control over providing comprehensive care to the patient. If a patient gets readmitted to a hospital because of their negligence to follow through on a referral appointment, the health system gets penalized for the readmission. The penalty could result in CMS withholding up to 3 percent of the funding provided to the health system. The system also suffers in terms of the perception of their quality of care. If a patient is not secured with a provider within network, they may go to a competing system.
Plan – Health plans have several important considerations when a referral happens with a vested interest on three fronts to ensure the patient goes to the target provider:
1) The health plan benefits if the patient goes to a target provider within their network. Not only will patients be directed to providers that best meet their needs, but the plan also benefits when patients are referred to the providers in their Smart Network. These providers are trusted for superior care for the patient and reduced costs for the plan.
2) When a plan member doesn’t get the care they need to maintain good health, their likelihood of having major adverse events rises dramatically. This means they will end up in the ER or needing other expensive care, which represents big costs for the health plan.
3) The current approach to referrals often results in long lead times, which makes for a poor patient experience and can increase costs.
A new study from HIMSS, unveiled today at the 2017 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, reinforces the positive impact health IT has on the U.S. economy while signaling challenges ahead for the expansion of health IT’s footprint.
Weaving together two historically seminal HIMSS research efforts (the annual HIMSS Leadership Survey and the biennial HIMSS Workforce Study), the new HIMSS Leadership and Workforce Survey report details the health IT priorities of key stakeholder groups and their linkages to various strategic initiatives (e.g. employment of select IT leaders) and economic measures (e.g. workforce projections). In an era of maturing EHR adoption, the study finds health IT leaders continue to report positive market growth metrics. Yet, health IT staffing structures and experiences in provider sites outside the hospital, coupled with their unique clinical IT priorities, point to a need to address the challenges faced by these types of providers in order to propel the sector’s growth.
“Health IT continues to be a bright spot in the U.S. economy,” said Lorren Pettit, vice president, health information systems and research for HIMSS. “Health IT workers continue to see strong demand for their skills, as employers across the provider and vendor/consultant spectrum embrace various health IT strategic initiatives. But the specific hurdles faced by some sectors suggest that the health IT field will need to creatively address its expansion outside the hospital walls.”
Key findings include:
Demand for health IT talent leaves employers struggling. The majority of health IT employers (61 percent of vendors/consultants and 43 percent of providers) have positions they are looking to fill. The findings suggest the demand for health IT workers is strong, as evidenced by the fact that only 32 percent of vendors / consultant organizations, and 38 percent of provider organizations, claim they are fully staffed.
The majority of health IT employers grew or at least maintained the size of their IT workforce over the past year. 61 percent of vendors/consultants and 42 percent of providers reported IT staffing increases, and the majority of respondents across both groups expect to further increase or hold steady over the next year.
IT budgets continue to rise. Although projections are not uniform between the two groups, the majority of providers (56 percent) and vendors/consultants (87 percent) project increases in their IT budgets this year.
A significant disconnect exists between providers and vendors/consultants on certain select clinical IT priorities – notably electronic health records (EHRs). Vendors/consultants seem to be “moving on” to other issues, whereas providers appear to be wrestling with how to best leverage their existing EHR investments.
However, the stakeholder groups are generally aligned on the biggest priorities facing those leveraging clinical IT, including privacy/security, care coordination, culture of care and population health.
The 2017 Leadership and Workforce Survey reflects the responses of 368 U.S. health IT leaders between late November 2016 and early January 2017. Download the complete report.
Healthcare is experiencing major breakthroughs in technology with the rise in digital transformation. mHealth – a terminology that combines mobile technology with healthcare is proliferating and bringing up an opportunity to revamp public health.
Mobile technology is playing a vital role in delivering healthcare seamlessly, with ease of access to both providers as well as consumers.
The magnitude and scope of development of mHealth is beyond explanation. As per GreatCall, mHealth is projected to be a $26 billion industry by the end of 2017. Surely, 10 years from now healthcare mobile devices will become smarter than they already are.
This technology has a potential to reduce the risk of errors and save the time and money that is often wasted. As more and more care providers are shifting to mobile health technologies, consumers have a plethora of options to choose from. Its adoption rate is at an all-time high since it has a variety of utilities to offer.
Development of point of care medical devices, fitness and wellness smartphone apps, clinical medication apps, medical resources, journals and patient records is on the surge. Mobile technology is helping increase patient engagement and connected care. Almost, 83 percent physicians believe in the power of mHealth for patients.
There is a whole new world of possibilities and challenges that mobile has opened for healthcare along with its growing development and support. For instance, end point app security, data breaches and HIPAA violations have sharply increased and there is a need to regulate them. Despite these, mHealth proves to be the most promising industry trend for caregivers and consumers alike.
To understand the general consumer response, usage trends security concerns governing mHealth, Kays Harbor has come up with an infographic. This infographic depicts interesting facts and numbers reported by surveys conducted by firms like SkyCure, Research2Guidance, Great Call, etc.
About two decades ago who would’ve thought of the invention of Nano robots that are able to carry drugs all the way to the human bloodstream?
It’s happening. Technology is revolutionizing the conventional ‘human country doctor’ health care and there’s not much to be surprised of. With modern machines and software taking over the healthcare industry, one often wonders, “What good is technology doing to it?”
Health information technology (HIT – is information technology applied to health and health care. It supports health information management across computerized systems and the secure exchange of health information between consumers, providers, payers, and quality monitors) is the burgeoning specialized combination of information technology, communications, and healthcare and it is altering the course of patient care for the better. Here’s how:
Knowledge Sharing
Practicing medicine is a lifelong learning. Doctors need to be on their toes all the time to acquire the knowledge of the latest developments in their field. Not updating themselves can make their practice stagnant – nobody would want to consult a doctor like that. Health IT brings the knowledge about everything, be it patients, therapies, diseases or medicines at their easy disposal. This knowledge can be easily shared between consultants, patients, and can even be updated when needed. That’s a whole new world of medical science for the doctors and patients to explore.
Improved Coordination
The world is swiftly moving towards specialization. Healthcare is no different. A single hospital stay could mean being under the observation of several different specialists at the same time. These specialists are required to coordinate with each other on every case they deal with. The way forward is paved by health IT. Health IT helps bring everything related to your condition from nutrition to neural complications in tandem with each other. The specialists know which condition can make regular course of treatment difficult for you or which medicine would trigger your skin allergies. The result? There are fewer chances of problems arising in your healthcare.
Better Outcomes
The most significant way IT is transforming the healthcare industry is in the form of better outcomes. Automation streamlines the operations of a medical facility, making them more effective and efficient. It is easier for different doctors and nurses to coordinate and diagnose a particular case. There are less chances of human error which ultimately leads to higher quality and safer care. With less time wasted in going through physical files and other manual work, doctors and nurses have more time on their hands to spend with patients.
