Digital Health in Hospitals Has Moved Forward 15 Years In The Last 4 Months
Between March 2nd & April 15th, 2020, virtual urgent care visits increased by 683% and virtual non-urgent visits increased by 4,345% (Journal of the American Informatics Association, n.d.), which hints that digital health in hospitals has moved forward 15 years in the last 4 months. So, what does the new future for digital health in hospitals look like? Healthcare is changing rapidly. But are these changes here to stay? I will look at why I think many of these changes will be incorporated into ongoing care, even once a vaccine is found for COVID-19.
CMS has issued a sweeping array of new rules and waivers of federal requirements to ensure that local hospitals and health systems have the capacity to absorb and effectively manage potential surges of COVID-19 patients and provide virtual treatment and support.
Even before COVID-19, healthcare costs were continuing to spiral due to an increase in the number of chronic conditions coupled with an aging population, and the rising cost for healthcare needs and equipment. Many individuals live remotely or struggle to access care due to mobility or time constraints, resulting in them delaying access to care and then presenting with more co-morbidities. This is coupled with the current pandemic situation, where individuals, particularly those with co-morbidities do not want to access hospital care and the increased backlog. All this is putting a strain on current funding models.
What can digital technology do?
Digital technology has been found to reduce overall operational costs, increase access to care, and improve outcomes. This is because it can minimize avoidable service use, reduce unnecessary visits to the hospital ER department and allow some services for chronic conditions and preventative care to be moved to the community, and allows for large quantities of data to be analysed to assist with healthcare analytics. For example, Avera Health has saved $143 million dollars through the use of telehealth, whilst Mercy has reduced admission rates by 44% (Deloitte Center for Health Solutions 2015).
In order to implement digital health, hospitals need to ensure that it fits seamlessly into the system. Digital health allows for a shift to proactive and preventative care as it encourages individuals who have neither the capability nor time to visit a doctor, and therefore only go when their conditions have escalated to the point where they often need more invasive treatment or to be admitted to the hospital. With this, virtual visits allow more patients to access healthcare, improving outcomes and reducing operational costs.
From a hospital perspective, there are some definite positives, but what about patients? Are they interested in virtual care? What could this look like? All this will be discussed in next blog post.
For more information on this topic please see our webinar that happened on June 17th 2020.
References
Study published in the Journal of the American Informatics Association, n.d.
Deloitte Center for Health Solutions 2015, Connected health: digital technology is transforming health and social care, viewed 24 June 2020, https://www.longwoods.com/articles/images/deloitte-uk-connected-health.pdf
