Efficiency Health - Blog by John Westlake

Six Trends That Are Shaping the Future of Healthcare

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 11:37:40 -0600

Six Trends That Are Shaping the Future of Healthcare

Efficiency Healthcare’s newest study, Reimagining Better Health, was commissioned to find fresh perspectives on the healthcare industry today and how it can be improved. By surveying a diverse group of 7,500 clinicians and patients across eight countries,[1] this study reveals that the future of healthcare lies in a system that serves people first and works to improve both the patient and the clinician experience. And it shows that there’s a strong consensus on how to make that happen.

Here are the six trends and findings the study explores for a more human and flexible healthcare experience:

Care Team Well-Being

Even before the pandemic hit in 2020, clinicians had infamously grueling schedules, and the pressure has only increased. Fewer than half of all clinicians “feel they have enough time and resources to care for both patients and their families.” Clinicians surveyed cite poor work-life balance paired with global healthcare crises as key reasons for clinicians leaving the industry.

We know how important our care teams are, and their well-being must be a priority. The key may be in workforce planning, which will restructure the healthcare workspace to put the right work into the best-suited hands to ensure that clinicians have the resources, training, compensation, and working environment they need to thrive.

Patient and Care Team Partnership

There is an increased demand from patients for control in their health journey, but they often face roadblocks due to a lack of communication and integration among clinicians, departments, and systems. By transitioning to an integrated, collaborative care system that places patients within their care teams, clinicians will be able to treat patients most effectively and patients will be able to play an active role in their own care.

Smart and Connected

We live in an age of data and information, but in the healthcare industry, accessing patient data across different devices and softwares can be a challenge. The future: seamlessly integrating all devices and softwares in an interconnected ecosystem so that patient data can easily be accessed and utilized by clinicians to streamline workflow for smarter and faster clinical decision-making.

Harnessing Big Data

Knowledge is power, but we need to be able to analyze that knowledge to effectively leverage it. Healthcare data pours in incredibly quickly, but the volume is overwhelming, with 97% of all healthcare data in hospitals going unused. Clinicians do not have the time to break down each byte of information as they stay vigilant in patient care.

The next step is learning to utilize big data to its fullest potential. Hospitals and practices must rethink technology infrastructures and leverage smart and connected workflows to share data-driven discoveries across different health systems to make the best use of the data resources in their hands. Care teams will also onboard data specialists so that data can be analyzed with the greatest efficiency while clinicians prioritize hands-on patient care.

Distributed Care

During the height of the pandemic, telehealth was an absolute necessity, but that experience with telehealth shone a light on the manifold benefits of a flexible care system.

Traditionally, the majority of care is administered in person in conventional healthcare facilities. But by building on using the resources and experience obtained from the COVID-19 pandemic, we can distribute care so as to relieve pressure from hospitals and make it more accessible to patients. Now, rather than constantly heading into the hospital or care center, patients have more flexible, accessible options, including mobile clinics, telehealth, and basic in-home care, including self-monitoring, treatment, and diagnostic testing.

“Stronger monitoring of healthcare devices in homes and digital transformation are the things that the healthcare industry needs most today, promising fair and affordable health services and a more efficient way of living,” said a nurse from Germany in the study.

Precision, Predictive, and Preventive

The next wave of care emphasizes wellness and preventive medicine, rather than primarily treating and curing problems after they’ve arisen. This focus will allow clinicians to provide more personalized care plans, making it easier to diagnose rapidly and apply precision care when illness does occur. The majority of physicians believe “healthcare that is personalized to the patient is very important for the future,” and patients agree that using technology to get earlier and faster detection, evaluation, and treatment for their needs is one of their top priorities.

This approach can also address global health inequity. At-risk communities can be more easily identified and offered preventive care tailored to their specific needs, and there is the ability to scale up wellness and preventive care to serve larger and larger populations.

Explore the full study and findings of Reimagining Better Health here.

About Reimagining Better Health

The Reimagining Better Health study draws on a quantitative survey of 2,000 clinicians and 5,500 patients and patient advocates, as well as qualitative interviews of 24 healthcare experts across eight countries in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. This cross-sampling considered diversity of economic maturity, geography, and representation of a pure or hybrid form of the four basic healthcare models (Beveridge, Bismarck, National Health Insurance, and Out-of-Pocket).

The double-blind survey with random sampling was conducted between August and October 2022 by a third-party market research firm. All survey respondents were asked for their opinion based on their personal experience. Questions relating to technology solutions addressed their general perception and experience with technology within their facilities and included the entire spectrum of medical technology, without reference to any specific solutions or vendors. Any references in this report to technology are inclusive of the entire spectrum of medical technology, such as medical devices, software solutions, electronic patient records, and other digital workflow solutions.

Why We Conducted the Study

As we stepped into a new chapter as an independent GE HealthCare, we commissioned this study to help not only us, but the healthcare industry, add context and insights helpful to better defining the problems our customers and broader stakeholders face. It starts with listening and understanding before you can solve the problem.

By amplifying the voices of patients and clinicians, we shine a spotlight on their personal perspectives as a critical and frequently overlooked part of this conversation. Their insights are essential to the industry collectively reimagining healthcare. Their partnership and positive experience are key to the healthcare industry’s success.

References

[1] Brazil, China, Germany, India, New Zealand, South Korea, United Kingdom, USA.

Medicare: Ensure Access to Advancements in Alzheimer's Diagnosis, Treatment

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 11:36:46 -0600

Medicare: Ensure Access to Advancements in Alzheimer’s Diagnosis, Treatment

Losing a loved one is always a difficult experience, but for friends and families of those living with Alzheimer’s, the loss is particularly prolonged and difficult.

Five years ago, my mother passed away after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. When she was diagnosed in 2008, there were no definitive diagnosis tools available to her. All too quickly, we went through the stages of the disease: memory loss, fear and hallucinations, loss of speech, nightmares, and a physical deterioration that eventually saw her bedbound and unable to swallow food and liquids. Sadly, this heartbreaking experience of watching someone I love slowly deteriorate mentally and physically is one I share with tens of millions of people around the world.

Today, dementia affects 55 million people globally, and more than seven million Americans live with Alzheimer’s, the seventh-leading cause of death in the country. Unfortunately, there is no cure, and patients have had limited treatment options. However, recent advancements in therapeutics are raising the hopes of millions of Alzheimer’s patients and their families.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new Alzheimer’s therapy. This drug targets and reduces amyloid plaque in the brain — one of the telltale signs of the disease. A new treatment option for those with Alzheimer’s is certainly news worth celebrating. It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. But access to this treatment could be severely limited if patients lack access to the proper diagnostic tools.

Confirming a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, while the patient is still alive is now possible thanks to advanced imaging that helps doctors confirm the presence of amyloid plaque. Since new Alzheimer’s therapies specifically target these amyloid plaques, it is imperative for patients that their doctors are making treatment decisions with the best possible images of amyloid in the brain.

That is why diagnostic amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) scans are so crucial. For many years, these kinds of PET scans have been the gold standard for viewing amyloid plaque in the brain, helping doctors to more accurately confirm or rule out an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

For Medicare beneficiaries to receive a newly FDA-approved therapeutic, they must first have confirmation of their Alzheimer’s diagnosis. However, Medicare currently covers an amyloid PET scan only if a patient is enrolled in a clinical study. Even then, Medicare covers only one PET scan for a patient’s entire lifetime — a policy that should be amended to allow for follow-up scans. This will ensure physicians can determine the appropriate treatment and help evaluate whether the therapeutics are working for patients suffering from this devastating disease.

The innovations taking place in diagnostic imaging and treatment for Alzheimer’s are groundbreaking — especially since amyloid PET scans can indicate an Alzheimer’s diagnosis early in a patient’s disease progression.

Medicare must ensure patient access to amyloid PET scans by removing the one-scan-per-lifetime limit and providing national coverage of amyloid PET scans. Doing so will enable physicians nationwide to more efficiently and effectively confirm an Alzheimer’s diagnosis so they can prescribe their patients these innovative treatments.

Alzheimer’s took my mother from me. For as long as the disease allowed it, she remained a mother, showing courage and resiliency and often begging me not to worry. But the reality is, seeing her so frightened as she deteriorated was a very traumatic journey.

I do not wish that experience on anyone, but it has driven my purpose at work, where I am fully dedicated to serving healthcare providers and improving patient outcomes. These diagnostic tools and new treatment options could be a game changer for millions of Alzheimer’s patients and their families, but Medicare must update its policies on amyloid PET to ensure patient access to these new therapies.

Top: The author with her mother in Chicago before her mother's Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

Emerging Technology in Healthcare!

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 10:01:03 -0600

Emerging Technology in Healthcare: The Increasing Development of At-Home Tools

From smartphones to cloud storage, technology has revolutionized daily life, especially in the past decade. The medical field has certainly taken its own giant steps with emerging technology in healthcare as well. But in some areas, the digital evolution has lagged, notably in introducing tools that patients could use for at-home health monitoring.

In recent years, manufacturers and designers have became fixated with designing digital tools that aim to improve overall wellness while providing patients with the most personalized care possible. These digital solutions can empower people to actively participate in their own healthcare and give providers valuable data that may improve treatments and decision-making. The emerging trend of at-home technologies, such as wearable devices and healthcare-related smartphone apps, has opened the door for greater precision medicine.

The Landscape for Healthcare Digitization

From both the patient and provider perspectives, healthcare digitization has been transformational. It's changed how people communicate with their providers and how they share their health data. It's also contributed to how providers make treatment decisions, potentially improving outcomes.

When implemented, these tools—which include devices powered by artificial intelligence (AI), remote patient monitoring software, and telemedicine—may enhance chronic disease management, improve access to care, promote affordability, and deliver individualized service. However, when compared with other industries, the healthcare industry has traditionally been slow to embrace new technologies—often citing concerns over cybersecurity, interoperability, privacy, and safety.1,2

What Healthcare Can Learn from Other Industries

As other industries experiment and experience digitization success, their accomplishments can serve as guideposts for healthcare along its own digitization journey.

Outside industries have created a three-step path that healthcare can follow to achieve effective digitization:3

Identify the transformational need, then choose the appropriate technology solution.
Design a workflow or patient care model that can effectively leverage new capabilities.
Monitor the change and look for ways to continue to improve.

The digital pivot by tractor company John Deere highlights opportunity for and provides examples of how healthcare could approach the shift toward greater technology use.3 To maximize efficiency, Deere built tractors that incorporate cloud computing, machine learning, global positioning, and computer vision. Farmers use their smartphones to plant crops more accurately and make real-time adjustments. In effect, Deere has created a more individualized approach to farming—setting a strong example for what healthcare could do with personalized health.

Impact of Burgeoning At-Home Digital Healthcare Tools

According to a survey by Deloitte, a key driving force behind healthcare digitization is creating a better experience for the patient.5 Health system executives said thinking about care delivery processes from the consumer's perspective could build trust and loyalty—and lead to even more healthcare innovations.

One way the healthcare industry is trying to leverage digitization is with at-home healthcare tools that let patients do some testing, monitor their vitals, and perform other routine checks, and then share the data with their providers.6 These technologies let patients track key information conveniently on their own and can help their providers identify any potential problems that should be addressed between appointments.

Where Healthcare Digitization Is Headed

Although this kind of digitization work is nascent, several products in the wellness space reveal what healthcare has already accomplished and where it's headed. Cloud-based, digital software tools that promote collaboration between patients and providers—as well as data-sharing for better outcomes—are already in use and addressing some of healthcare's major goals in the near future.

Improving Access to Care

Low-income and rural patients often lack access to quality healthcare, frequently leading to negative outcomes. Digital tools like video consultations and wearable devices can expand their access. Other devices that connects to a smartphone, can extend valuable care to more of the population. With this device in particular, patients can self-scan, send the image to their provider, and have a consultation, and the data can even be integrated into their electronic medical records. Telemedicine tools and technology not only improve access to care by allowing patients to monitor their health at home, but they can also help cut costs.

Increasing Affordability

The price tag for healthcare can be a stumbling block for many people, which is what makes telemedicine so important as a means of reducing unnecessary visits to emergency rooms and transportation expenses. The out-of-pocket cost for an ultrasound exam for patients, for instance, ranges from just over $300 to about $2,200 depending on the state.8 Emerging technology in healthcare and ultrasound is designed to make devices—like at-home and over-the-counter, wearable blood pressure monitors—and services more affordable and drive down the overall cost.

Establishing More Individualized Care

A one-size-fits-all solution rarely exists in healthcare. New digital tools are designed to support the precision medicine patients and consumers prefer. A personal electrocardiogram device designed for over-the-counter consumers. It collects data from consumer-conducted scans and immediately uploads it to their electronic medical record, enabling healthcare providers to make better short- and long-term treatment decisions.

Marching toward At-Home Healthcare Tech

Healthcare's march toward greater digitization—specifically with at-home patient monitoring tools—has progressed significantly in recent years. But the industry still has far to go. By looking to the advancements in other industries and pursuing improvements in the patient experience, healthcare will be poised to revolutionize care delivery with remote patient monitoring software and tech.

REFERENCES:

1. Gilbert G, Fernandes LA, Sawant A. Digital is reshaping US health insurance—winners are moving fast. McKinsey & Company. Published January 8, 2019. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/digital-is-reshaping-us-health-insurance-winners-are-moving-fast. Accessed February 15, 2023.

2. Ravitz R. Why healthcare can be slow to adopt technological innovations. Med-Tech Innovation News. Published April 2, 2020. https://www.med-technews.com/medtech-insights/why-healthcare-is-slow-to-adopt-technological-innovations/. Accessed February 15, 2023.

3. Nintex. "Three Steps to Digitizing Your Core Business Processes." Nintex, April 10, 2023. https://www.nintex.com/blog/digitize-core-business-processes/.

4. Millenson ML. At CES, a tractor and a patient stethoscope point to digital health future. Forbes. Published January 13, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmillenson/2023/01/13/at-ces-a-tractor-and-a-patient-stethoscope-point-to-digital-health-future/. Accessed February 15, 2023.

5. Shudes C, Shukla M, Chang C, et al. Digital transformation: From a buzzword to an imperative for health systems. Deloitte. Published October 26, 2021. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/health-care/digital-transformation-in-healthcare.html. Accessed February 15, 2023.

6. Digital health tech takes spotlight at CES 2023. Tomorrow's World Today. Published January 9, 2023. https://www.tomorrowsworldtoday.com/2023/01/09/digital-health-tech-takes-spotlight-at-ces-2023/. Accessed February 15, 2023.

7. Chronic diseases in America. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Last reviewed December 13, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/infographic/chronic-diseases.htm. Accessed February 15, 2023.

8. Paavola, Alia. "The Average Cash Price of a Hospital Ultrasound in Each State." Becker's Hospital Review. Accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/the-average-cost-of-a-hospital-ultrasound-in-each-state.html.