The Revolution in Healthcare: Advanced Information Technology Now Arriving...
- Apr 4, 2018
- 3 min read
Image Credit: Brother UK, Flickr Licensed C.C. by 2.0. Image unchanged, no affiliation or endorsement implied.
In the early 1900's, medicine was at the forefront of technology. Radiographs, EKG's, and EEG's were among the newly discovered, sophisticated methods that harnessed science and technology to diagnose illness in human beings. Over the years, technological advances in diagnostic imaging and therapeutic medical devices continued to improve at a steady pace. Yet, despite the advances in medical knowledge and technological ability, medical information management in Medicine was still in the stone age. Physician notes were recorded on paper and orders transmitted through written or verbal instruction. Patient information was stored on ever expanding paper charts on shelves in hospital basements, vulnerable to coffee spills and all imaginable physical insults.
Although the digitization of health records began as early as 1972, initial widespread adoption of this practice did not occur until 20 years later. The push for electronic medical record (EMR) keeping began in the late 1990s, as computer costs decreased and usage increased, with the Institute of Medicine leading the case for progress. HIPAA law was passed, deeming protected status of patient health information, and paving the way for more restricted, durable and secure maintenance of patient information on computers and servers. Today, transformation to 100% electronic records is not complete, however, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare are enforcing compliance and imposing penalties on those facilities still lagging behind.
Yet even as medicine is plodding along, big technology is rapidly exploding in other areas. Mobile devices, laptop, cellphone and tablet markets are progressing at lightning speed, with all the cool applications to match. The healthcare arena remains relatively untouched by this momentum, as many developers can not, or choose not to navigate the numerous corporate idiosyncracies, policies, laws, stakeholders, workarounds and fixes that each organization establishes to manage the growing medical information liability beast. Only a few solid players maintained in this environment with an insidious ballooning mismatch between what providers need and what technology is delivering. Witness a perpetually sub-optimal patient experience as the information silos serve as an effective bottleneck between expert knowledge and diagnosis, and prompt, precise and timely treatment.
Well, we can all breathe a sigh of relief because finally help is on the way. Some dedicated and talented souls have started to lay the framework for rapid tech advancement in medical information, and suddenly everyone is paying attention. This is all converging as the concepts of health care delivery are morphing to individualized, precision-focused, data-driven, value-based, patient-centric care. In the future of healthcare - your care plan will be uniquely tailored to you.
This means that no detail of your health and well-being will be trivial or overlooked - your exercise capacity, sleep, habits, diet, family history, genetic code, environmental exposures, behavior, and psychology will all be captured, analyzed and processed to establish risk profiles, preventive care and treatment regimens. Imagine specially formulated medications, matched precisely to your DNA. This is precision-medicine. Electronic health records giant Epic's CEO, Judy Faulkner, coined the term of this new integrated health information chart the "CHR" for Comprehensive Health Record.
The boundaries will dissolve between in-patient and out-patient care, as you will be able to access a medical professional and view your medical records no matter where you are. Tele-medicine based health opportunities continue to increase. Not only will health care become more available to you, your personal chart will be accessible for your specialists without the usual speed bumps of having to repeat tests, retell your history, or arrange for the the slow-mo transfer of health records between providers. This is a future of health information exchanges and inter-operability.
Both the quality and speed of care transactions would increase as health care providers have access to rapid information at precisely the time that they need it. This is voice-activated searching and machine learning in billing and coding. This means up-to-the-minute access to patient information, data analytics, treatment algorithms and relevant cutting-edge research results through intelligently delivered technology; floating at the bedside, or in the operating room. Expect artificial intelligence and augmented reality working to enhance health care providers' capabilities, with apps drawing on Google or Microsoft Cloud ecosystems. Expect to be firmly in the know about every aspect of your health regimen and care plan. Hospitals and providers would finally be incentivized and paid more to keep you healthy, sharing the same goals as you. This is value-based care, and this is the future that medicine dreamed of and promised to us, with all of it's audacity and ambition.
Watch, as the new age of health information technology heralds in a brand new patient experience and patients are front and center in the care paradigm. Have you been waiting for this? Feel free to comment below.
Check out our other blog posts and stay tuned for more glimpses of the future...
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