Market disruption. Two little words, with an impact that can transform industries.
No matter the industry, innovations in computing and technology have brought a new era of digital disruption across a wide range of industries. From the shift from bricks and mortar purchasing to the digital-delivery model impacting retail sales to the invention of the iPhone, revolutionizing communication, computing has had a wide-ranging, transformative impact on many sectors.
For an industry as historic and esteemed as healthcare, it would seem that digital innovation would transform the work that many in the sector do, no matter whether they’re a recent MSN graduate or an esteemed professional.
Yet, devices such as fax machines are a perverse reminder that while sometimes, industries will innovate, it can take a long time to have a meaningful impact on existing practices and procedures.
A Short History of Digital Technology in Health
Did you know that digital technology began making inroads into the healthcare sector nearly five decades ago? Technology in health has taken various forms – in the 1970s, early versions of it were known as telematics – the ability to combine telecommunications and information systems to exchange data rapidly.
By the 1990s, bodies such as the World Health Organization recognized advances in the field – from a nascent internet, to increasingly faster computers, beginning to report on the potential of telematics, outlining a vision for the future where technology broke down barriers, and made care meaningful, even in remote and isolated areas.
In the decades since, advancements in technology have brought rapid technological advancement to many sectors of healthcare. Surgeons can use their expertise to work with surgical robots on patients dozens of miles away – supercomputers can help test and assess vaccine efficacy – and patients, living remotely, can enjoy the support of high-quality care, often without needing to leave home.
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Optimizing Healthcare – Using Data Meaningfully
In a world where new artificial intelligence (AI) models are entering the commercial space, there remains a significant opportunity to improve how technology is used in the healthcare sector.
Take, for example, the humble fax machine. First making its way into the healthcare sector in the 1970s, it still has a place in the vast majority of hospital environments, according to recent research.
Why would a fax machine have a place in a society where tablet computing, digital displays, and massively networked platforms are in play? The answer, so it may seem, appears to lie in the way that technology is developed and implemented in the healthcare sector.
When asked about why medical staff continued to use fax machines in the workplaces, doctors overwhelmingly replied with a simple answer – with so many different digital systems on the market, the various technologies that provide digital health records are simply incapable of providing the same level of information that traditional faxed documents can.
It’s clear that, if digital technologies are to successfully integrate into the contemporary healthcare industry, organizations need to be able to work together to connect the dots between interconnected systems. To use data meaningfully, it may require regulators to enforce a standard format for healthcare documentation, such as how Australia has developed the My Health Record.
Cyber Threats – The Target on Providers
Technology is often developed in an industry-agnostic setting – new devices such as phones and tablets are made available to the market, meeting a broader demand for these items. This includes software, which many different providers may make. Often these tools are designed to be one-size-fits-all – however, this can introduce elements of risk to a business.
Consider, for example, the types and varieties of data available to a hospital. Perhaps, patient records contain sensitive information, such as features or treatments that patients may not wish to make public. While many healthcare professionals have obligations under the HIPAA Act, hackers and malicious actors love to get a hold of sensitive data.
In an environment where development often results in a variety of systems, both current and outdated, interacting with digital records, hospital staff can often find themselves on the front line of cyber incidents. These can have substantial penalties on not only patient privacy but also on the bottom line of providers – such as UnitedHealth Group, expected to be hit with increased costs in the order of more than $1.6 billion after a recent hack took down their systems for weeks.
Advancing Challenges With Technology
Risks aside, digital technology provides an incredible opportunity for hospitals to not only optimize processes but to bring a new generation of innovation to the healthcare sector.
Rather than constant monitoring, innovations such as wearables can enable remote patient management. Computers, instead of nurses, can monitor vital signs for significant shifts, sending alerts to staff when they are needed. This can allow for the optimization of hospital roles – instead of ongoing rounds, instead a nurse can go where they are needed, for longer periods.
Technology that is broadly transforming the communication sector, such as satellite and 5G networks, is also likely to contribute to a new era of innovation and improvements in the healthcare sector.
As patients and doctors can begin to work from even more remote distances, it may become possible that highly precise, robotically aided surgery may be able to be conducted from thousands of miles away.
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The End of Traditional Healthcare Models?
It’s been more than two decades since the first use of robotically-aided surgery in the U.S. While robotic surgery has come a long way since gall bladder removals, more complex surgery such as exploratory brain surgery, can only be completed at smaller distances, due to issues with data latency and lag.
So it seems that, at least for now, the role of on-site doctors and surgeons cannot be discounted. That, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing – having a medical professional present can often be advantageous, particularly when a rapid response is required.
As the world becomes increasingly digitized, we may just need to ask ourselves – what does the hospital or doctor’s office of tomorrow begin to look like? Will it be a highly interconnected, compatible digital ecosystem that takes the best of modern technology and uses it to save lives? Or will it be much the same as today – competing systems, challenging compatibility issues, and threats from bad actors both locally and abroad?
Unfortunately, we don’t know what the answers may be. Something new and innovative may come out and surprise us – much like the smartphone, sometimes technology can pivot rapidly and seemingly randomly.
For now, however – let’s imagine a world where technology transforms healthcare forever – and aspire to achieve that vision.
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