Digital Healthcare – the magic key to unlocking opportunities in the Healthcare Market

If there’s one thing that has amazed me in recent days, it’s the effect that technology has had on our lives. How many times have we noticed people staring into that tiny device in their hands when walking on the road? How many times have we noticed people talking to their mobile devices (literally!). We’ve become dependent on these tiny things so much that it’s difficult to imagine a day without them. But nothing has had me fascinated as much as the effect they have had in the Healthcare industry and how it has made it so much easier to bring quality healthcare to the underprivileged. The advent of the Internet, mobile technology and IoT has helped wonderfully marry patient needs and their providers’ solutions. This has made it possible for us to afford quality healthcare at a fraction of the cost – something that was only a dream waiting to be realized until recently.

Organizations like Google, Makovsky, Accenture, Pew Research Center, eMarketer, American Wellness, Statista etc. have all conducted their own independent studies to better analyze the impact of technology in healthcare and their research results are astonishing.

1. Out of the nearly 2.2M apps on the app store, 5% of apps are specific to the Healthcare industry – Reference
2. One in every twenty Google search results points to something specific to Healthcare - Reference
3. 62% of smartphone owners have used their phone to get Health information - Reference
4. 66% of Americans are willing to use mobile apps to manage their Health - Reference
5. Patients are beginning to move away from the traditional paper based approach and spending more time in researching Healthcare information online - Reference
6. 79% of Americans are open to using a wearable device to manage their health - Reference
7. Medical data repositories have increased by more than 50% in one year - Reference
8. More than 50% of patients wants to access their health records (EMR) - Reference
9. By end of 2019, it is expected that more than 66% of healthcare service providers would have enabled scheduling doctor visits online - Reference
10. More than 69% increase in the number American employers offering TeleMedicine - Reference
• 64% of Americans are willing to consult the doctor over digital medium. Most of them believe that the online visit is cheaper than in-person care
• Overall savings up to $6B
• 30% of parents with children under the ages of 18 would prefer video consultation for emergency care
• 42% of women aged 18-43 would prefer to get birth control prescriptions online
11. Digital ad spending by Pharma and Healthcare industry is getting increased every year by 15% - Reference 

At first glance, all this might seem like a bunch of pointers and numbers published on some online Healthcare forum.

But let’s take a closer look at what this data actually points to:

1. It’s hard to miss the paradigm shift here; Patients and consumers are tech-savvy and prefer having all the information at their fingertip. They expect to diagnose symptoms themselves and look into possible treatments, request for second opinions to clarify instructions, find alternate healthcare, personnel health care etc.
2. They expect their information to be mobile friendly, enabling them to schedule doctor visits manage prescriptions, request refills, pay bills and do much more than they can currently. This is essential if going forward, a provider wishes to continue to remain in business
3. Mobile application usage will grow and continue to be extensively used by patients to manage their health data and make informed decisions
4. IoT (Internet of Things) and wearable devices collecting user health data are the way to go. In my opinion, they can assist physicians in providing better diagnosis and treatment and improve patient engagement. Another advantage is that this real-time data analysis enables proactively administering healthcare to patients
5. Digital marketing and advertising a provider’s solutions works far more effectively than conventional marketing tools
6. Patients are beginning to expect a more transparent medical history-sharing platform. Sharing patient medical record with the patient is critical. If not made available, there’s a very high chance that the patient may go elsewhere where the EMR are shared digitally
7. TeleMedicine is the future. It is something that every service provider should focus on. In the not so distant future, it will form the standard for connecting with patients across the globe

While providing quality healthcare without depending on technology is not impossible, the use of technology only makes things easier and more efficient for everyone. With every advantage that something offers, there’s definitely bound to be an Achilles heel to it. So what are the challenges?

1. Security – As per Identity Theft Resource Centre (ITRC), 35% data breaches were in Healthcare industry. Detailed Report
2. HIPPA compliance is a taxing and time consuming process
3. Standardization of Health practices and policies globally is a challenge
4. No mature, well established and secure communication protocols yet for sharing health data
5. Need for continuous training to keep up with evolving technological changes
6. Building a user experience that is easy-to-use and acceptable by all kind of global consumers
7. Need for having uninterrupted, network service to achieve real time monitoring
8. The biggest challenge is bringing the technology to the patient and making it work seamlessly. Some of the main challenges that need to be overcome includes:
• Supporting cross platform compatibility
• Interfacing Wearables, IoTs and Medical appliances for high quality real-time monitoring
• Interfacing multiple devices with one r more clouds
• Integrating with existing HMS and EMR systems
• Establishing standardized highly secure communication protocols

What do we do now? What next?

It is challenges like these that make the successful implementation of quality healthcare solutions even more satisfying. The need of the hour is a proper implementation strategy and sound policy framework. So before even thinking of implementing, every organization should understand and evaluate their current processes, technologies, IT team capability, current security standards and compliance etc. They should draft the business goals, outreach and expected ROI. They should understand their geography, both providers and consumer’s culture. I cannot stress enough on how important it is to have a Proof of Concept aka pilot in place first. This helps the stakeholders buy-in and understand the user behavior. In a nutshell, every organization needs to find answers to the following “what’s” first before implementing a solution of any sorts:

• What are my current capabilities?
• What do I plan on achieving with this implementation?
• What do I need to get there?

This helps the decision maker in strategizing Solution Landscape, Project and Program Management, Engagement, Security, Technology and Platform, Quality, Release, Maintenance etc.

Here are the some of the applications that may be helpful to start with:

1. Network Finder – Helps the consumers to find the service providers nearby. These services providers may include Hospitals, Clinics, Specialty centers, Emergency Response centers, Doctors, Testing Labs, Ambulance Services etc.;
2. Healthcare Forum – This is a forum for providers, consumers and agencies to connect under one platform. These kinds of platform is really useful to address the concerns and remedies for chronicle diseases and specialty medicining 
3. Content Sharing – App for providers  to notify and share the multimedia content, newsletters, tips, magazines, podcasts etc. with consumers
4. Patient/Consumer Apps:
• Application to schedule, cancel and reschedule appointment
• Request additional prescriptions
• View Medical records on-demand
• Indoor Navigation using beacon and NFC technologies – This app helps the patients to easily locate and navigate to specialty departments, labs etc. Also eases the waiting time with alerts and notifications
• Wellness calculators and healthcare remainder services
• Medical Calculators for Child – Calculators that categorized, growth, conversion, renal conversion, pregnancy, critical care, drug dosage, diarrhea solution, blood reference etc.
• Child care app – Ask a Doctor, A pediatric on call’ expert panel of doctor’s answer to medical queries and common FAQ’s
• Pregnancy and Childbirth Apps that would may have one or more features like:
• Pregnancy tracker with tips and animated videos
• Labor and Birth - comprehensive guide to labor and birth; use a contractions timer
• Postpartum care -  Health and wellness guides for new mothers
• New Born care - Things about caring a new born baby
• Baby Names - Library of Baby Names
• Application for Relaxation and Stress Relief
• Medical Dictionary to find quick medical information on symptoms, causes and treatments
• Disease Dictionary for diseases and medical disorders
• Drug Dictionary compiles drug side effects and interaction warning including indication, dosage etc.
• Diagnostic Dictionary to get a recommended differential diagnosis after entering the clinical features
• Emergency Support App to advice on what to do in an emergency and what type of treatment is necessary
• Notifications Apps –
• To review and remind immunizations
• Organ & Blood donation events, notifications etc.
5. Providers/Enterprise Apps :
• Content Collaboration/Networking /Notifications – To share blogs, innovations, solutions, ideas, internal forums, organization directory, Events, Service remainders etc.
• Secured Messaging - HIPPA compliance secured messaging between individual and group, Phot/file share, patient-centric thread, workflow checklist, on-call schedule, off-duty coverage etc. 
• Survey - Patient, Healthcare, Service quality etc.
• In-patient care
• Checklist Apps for Surgery procedures , discharge procedures etc., with alerts, notifications and remainders
• Patient Admission Management – Full or partial clinical workflow management
6. TeleConsultation: End-to-End healthcare service line with video consultation, real-time EMR Annotation, real-time diagnosis and monitoring using IoT, Wearables and networked medical appliances etc.
7. Patient Monitoring to monitor the patients healing growth either in offline or in real-time and support in proactive medicining

Conclusion

Mobile applications are already proving their worth as invaluable tools in the Healthcare industry. As the feature list and potential uses are ever expanding, they are expected to play even more important roles and find a way into almost every aspect of the Healthcare business.

If a provider is reluctant to adapt and update their infrastructure to support digitalizing healthcare, they would definitely be left out in the race and soon disappear from the market. At the same time, implementing something without understanding associated risks and challenges, selection of partners without rigorous evaluation and validation may lead to loss of business and eventually bankruptcy. 

A high quality secure app designed and developed with best-practice standards with meaningful, accurate and timely information will bring ultimate value to all the stakeholders – the providers, patients, payers and the society itself.

While the initial adoption rate might be slow, I am quite confident that, with changing times, it’ll only be a matter of time before everyone embraces the idea. One thing is for sure – technology is here to stay and already has its foot in the door. With the limitless possibilities that it brings with it, technology in Healthcare may quite well be the next revolution everyone is looking for.

So, what are we waiting for?