The Future of Healthcare: It’s Health, then Care
News Article -- May 02, 2011
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Premium, CSC's business magazine | Spring 2011 | No. 15
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How can healthcare progress to meet the patient population and economic challenges it faces? CSC’s Leading Edge Forum takes a look at how technology can support more proactive approaches that promote wellness and staying healthy.
Healthcare in the 21st century faces serious challenges. Not only must it cater to an aging population while facing shortages of care providers, an increase in chronic conditions such as diabetes, and growing global obesity; it is also beset by increasing costs and financial constraints.
To address these major problems, healthcare needs to make significant disruptive changes, according to “The Future of Healthcare: It’s Health, then Care”, a new research report by the Leading Edge Forum (LEF). Traditionally, healthcare has been delivered using a physician-centric model. When people felt unwell they saw their doctor, and if necessary received further care in a hospital setting. This model worked when little was known about prevention, there were few diagnostic tests and limited treatment options. However, advances in medicine on all fronts make this model outdated. For the future, LEF says, the practice of medicine follows a patient-centric care team model with new members and new roles. In addition, healthcare’s reach expands to include wellness monitoring, prevention and earlier disease detection. Of course, people will still get sick and require medical attention, and when they do there are new advanced medical treatments that speed healing, with improved quality of life and health outcomes.
This model relies on technology to put medical knowledge and tools into the hands of patients to proactively monitor their own health and wellness. New technologies also improve interactions between clinicians and patients and empower changes in their roles, and are enabling advances in detection and treatment.
Major Healthcare Industry Trends and Disruptive Technologies
Fortunately, changes are already in progress. There are a myriad of burgeoning efforts in laboratories, in pilot studies, in clinical trials and in practice. The changes these efforts represent, and the implications of the key technologies involved, are presented in the context of five major trends that are disrupting healthcare, as listed below. The trends focus first on patient-centric initiatives, and then on new developments, care providers, and finally on an emerging global health system.
1. Empowering the patient – E-power to the patient
Patients take on a larger, more active role in managing their health. They are in charge of their care management on a daily basis, with a ‘shared care’ relationship with their provider. Patients are empowered through the availability of health information, new health and wellness applications and support systems to encourage and monitor progress, all available using smartphones or other Internet-enabled technologies.
2. Earlier detection
Accelerating diagnosis is crucial to successful treatment for, if not prevention of, a health problem. Supporting technologies range from simple, inexpensive paper lab tests to breath tests that detect cancer and diabetes, to genetic testing for variants aligned to known health problems.
3. High-tech healing
New technology-based solutions can improve care and the long-term quality of life. Next-generation implants and ingestibles use a number of technologies to monitor disease progress, dispense medications, and assist and replace malfunctioning organs and limbs.
4. Resources: more, but different
New care models optimize clinical expertise and allow care delivery to be spread across a number of resources. Included in the care team are physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, medical assistants, care coaches, patients, and their families – all connected by new technologies. Care resources are also more accessible through remote technologies and online communities, for direct care and consultation.
5. Global healthcare system emerges
More is better. The increased baseline of information about patient care, outcomes, research study results, adverse events, disease surveillance, and population health will result in better care, and better and faster research. In the future, data are shared among the care team members anywhere they may be located, allowing them to make the best diagnostic and treatment decisions. Through a network of networks, different data sources and larger populations are valuable resources to support collaborative research among care providers, life science companies and researchers to solve the toughest health problems. Healthcare will always be local, but with a global knowledge base to draw from, the local care team is better equipped to make the right decisions, LEF believes. This global-local dynamic will evolve to create a healthcare system that promotes health, well-being and better health outcomes for all.
Focus: Brave New Healthcare: Smart Sticking Plasters
What if a person’s heart rate could be checked regularly by simply wearing a plaster? The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved Proteus Biomedical’s wireless adhesive sensor technology, called Raisin, which can track and record a patient’s heart rate, physical activity, body position and other biometrics. Raisin is worn like a plaster and transmits the data via Bluetooth to a PC or mobile device. This eliminates the need for medical visits to check heart rates, and since they are monitored continuously, adverse events can be spotted right away.