Balint Bene, CEO and founder of bene : studio examines the importance of person-centred technology and preventative health solutions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of reliable, specialised, and forward-thinking healthcare, and has challenged accepted ways of providing care. In particular, it has emphasized the benefits of preventive care, which focuses on inhibiting illnesses and diseases before they develop.
In the digital age, technology is playing an important role in preventive care. Specifically, person-centred technology-enabled care (TEC) gives patients the power to better engage with, and control, their health. Using telemedicine, telehealth, and telecoaching solutions, people can monitor their health metrics and activity levels, taking wellbeing into their own hands. TEC also gives people regular access to their health data, lets them research and choose health providers, and empowers them to make decisions about the best treatment. These capabilities are especially pressing as patients must navigate social distancing measures and new vulnerabilities in the pandemic.
Here's why the future of healthcare has to put prevention front-and-centre, and how person-centred TEC can help:
Making decisions based on data
Person-centred TEC is part of the wider system of The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) - an amalgamation of medical devices and applications that connect to healthcare systems and provide large volumes of health data. Not only does this system gather information from patients and automatically process it, it can aid in detecting precursors of disease or preventing progression in early stages.
For example, remote patient monitoring via online platforms allows people to report any health changes that they experience in real-time, and therefore alert doctors as soon as possible about potential health risks. The time for possible deterioration is also shortened due to the reduced contact time between patients and professionals.
Wearable devices in IoMT systems are equally as effective. Wristbands, watches, phones, and sensors can track and report people's heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, glucose levels, and other vitals that are key indicators of fluctuations in health. These smart and connected devices monitor health conditions for patients across all segments - including the elderly, vulnerable, and those who are predisposed to illness and disease.
In fact, by 2022, predictions state that 28.9 million millennials will own a wearable device. Considering that the average person generates more than 1 million gigabytes of health-related data in their lifetime - the equivalent of 300 million books - these troves of data will drive improved health awareness as people become better equipped to understand how to track their health.
Healthcare industry savings & progression
Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes are responsible for more than two-thirds of deaths and can be largely avoided when preventive care is applied. What's more, an increase in preventive care services would yield a staggering $3.7 billion in savings in the health industry.
Despite preventive care often being covered by medical insurance, 27.5 million Americans have no insurance coverage and can't afford even basic preventive care. As a result, more people suffer from illness and disease that could have been countered with the right care.
Technology-enabled care is a great alternative because it is more affordable and more easily integrated within an increasingly tech-dominated world. Wearables are available at reasonable prices, from local stores, and can sync with people's existing technology. Likewise, people don't have to drastically change their routines to harness the benefits of TEC tools, instead, they can be seamlessly included in everyday life and process data that is more representative of the person's lifestyle. For these reasons, TEC overcomes the barrier of cost and accessibility that traditional preventive care solutions pose.
Even better still, digitising healthcare in this way means that medical institutions have in-depth data around patients' habits, susceptibilities, and treatment success which can optimize upcoming developments in preventive healthcare. As more people use TEC tools and processes become even more streamlined, there is vast potential for preventive care to become the norm in healthcare.
Going from reactive to proactive
Everyone needs fair, affordable, and quality healthcare - and they need healthcare that is proactive rather than reactive. Especially amid the pandemic, where we are realising that unmet health-related needs increase the risk of developing chronic conditions, reduce an individual’s ability to manage their condition, and increase healthcare costs, preventive healthcare has to be a utility, not a luxury.
Rather than responding to illnesses or diseases once they're already present in a patient, person-centred TEC returns autonomy to people, empowering them to be responsible for how their health is handled. This sense of control could even have a positive impact on physical health and avoids the dehumanisation that sometimes comes with factory line-like care.
It's time to rethink healthcare as a consumer-led movement and give patients the appropriate tools to own their health - now and for the future.
