The Age of Digital Healthcare

Everyone knows that the illustration to the left is that of a human heart. It is a muscular organ which pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. Blood provides the body with oxygen and nutrients, and also assists in the removal of metabolic wastes. Essentially once the heart stops beating, the person is no longer alive. If we could understand this from a human anatomy's perspective, would it be difficult to understand that the Digital Health Record (DHR) is the heart of the Healthcare Ecosystem? Could it be beyond the intelligence of Practicing Healthcare Professionals and Administrators to see the similarity and realize that that the DHR is what will keep the ecosystem alive and without its apparent functioning the ecosystem might as well be dead?

Is there Trust in the Healthcare Ecosystem Anywhere on this Planet?

In the January 2016 McKinsey Quarterly article titled how Healthcare Systems can become Digital Leaders (https://goo.gl/XtF7Ba), authors Gerardo Aue, Stefan Biesdorf and Nicolaus Henke argue that the potential of digitization is well understood, yet healthcare systems are struggling to convert ambition into reality.

Even before we get to the digitization part there is a deeper malaise that the healthcare system needs to address. That of moving away from the Personal to a purely Professional interaction. Nothing wrong with that. As societies have evolved Decay & Disease have grown more than Life & Health. Relationships have moved from Personal to Institutional and Professionalism in Healthcare has become Commercial in its approach just as much as all other aspects of life that have dealt with growing numbers of mass. Having considered that isn't it ironical to ask the following questions:

1. What prevented the Transactional and Innovation Ecosystems globally to collaborate that could have witnessed more proactive approach to the Science of Health rather than Medicine? 
2. Is this discord between Public and Private Healthcare more dangerous than the Terrorism we are witnessed to as a society globally?
3. Why do Physicians continue playing God when they have decided to move away from that position of unconditional trust to just doing a job?

Who should pay for digital-health applications and services?

It all boils down to the above question. Healthcare like every other aspect of life is being disrupted by the Digital Revolution. Health Technologies (IOT) are proliferating and gaining traction to various levels of maturity. But like all things commercial they are in no way connected to the Medical Technology and the associated Information Technology. The reason for that is very simple. There are different commercial angles for getting the same individual to pay but nobody wants to handle the responsibility of making their product useful to the Quality of Lives of the individuals. For the first time in human history there is a way of recording the Body Vitals, Performance and Emotional Response from the time of the birth till the death of an individual. Integrating this Health with Medical and Information Technology (Essentially Data) will allow Healthcare to be more Responsive and Preventive. 

The first principle of Digital Economy is Intelligent Transaction Processing. Every stakeholder in the Healthcare Ecosystem starting from the Individuals to the Professionals must be unified in a common process and collaborate intelligently with each other in Real Time. Each one of them is benefiting from such an intelligent exchange and therefore they must pay for it. 

In my interactions with the healthcare industry professionals and even VC's and PE's who are pumping money into this sector the attitude is one of apathy.  They believe the window of time to milk the society and continue making money with the older generation methods in this new digital economy is still open. An ignorant and indifferent society does not help. Conventionally all optimization and refinement of the healthcare systems has come from the Payor perspective; where the payor is identified as the Insurance company in developed economies. In the developing economies like India there is very little respect for the Individual Payor in the specific context of healthcare industry; as restoring them to health is almost considered a favor by both Professionals and Institutions alike!!!

The real problem with Healthcare is Capacity globally

This is Revolutionary Call. Individuals should know that they are getting a raw deal at the end of the bargain. 

1. Whether an individual is rich or poor, educated or uneducated, urban or rural, living in a developed or a developing economy, funded by the government or themselves, they are the ones paying for their health care directly or indirectly; both with their money and their lives. 
2. Unless the Individuals take up the accountability and responsibility for their health, the healthcare industry ecosystem will not rise out of its stupor. They have to not only raise the rebellion for greater level of Compliance with respect to Governance, Compliance and Risk Assurance but also seek a transparent and uniformly collaborative process across healthcare professionals and institutions. The industry has a vested commercial interest in not doing so.
3. The above can be achieved only when the Individuals own their health record. They must bring in the discipline to manage their health as a process; thereby recording data for all life events and creating a record that can then be used as the basis for the Professionals to operate their Practice Management Process and the Institutions to operate their Care Management Process. 

The Digital Health Record is a Key Instrument of Transformation for the Healthcare Industry Ecosystem

The generic perception in the Healthcare Industry Ecosystem is that Individuals are not ready to take accountability for health. We need to shed both our Ignorance and Arrogance and look at life on this planet with a fresh perspective only because this is a pivotal point in its discourse. We need to challenge the established norms of the past that no longer are either viable or tenable for our future.

1. Times have changed. In the recent year or two there are have been significant developments for individuals to record their Body Vitals, Performance and Emotional Responses and there must be an active program to Educate, Own and Commit to this change by Individuals and their Families. It is pointless to expect a unified ecosystem process to serve individuals if it cannot have a Curated Digital Health Record Data. 
2. Governments must take the lead in improving the collaboration between the Innovation Ecosystem that combines Scientific Community as well as the Pharma and Medical & Wellness Technology Manufacturers with the Operational Healthcare Professional Practitioners and Institutions. The basis for this must be fully fleshed Case Management that is Recorded with strict adherence to Governance, Risk Assurance and Compliant with ICD 10, SNOMED - CT and HL7.
3. Health must be viewed as first Life, Learning and Living. Disease, Decay and Death is inevitable for every single person born on this planet. Science focuses on improving the Quality of Life and this must take precedence to drive Technology and not the other way round. We must force Innovation into the everyday and every single transaction of the healthcare ecosystem to be intelligent for every single stakeholder. 

Digital Healthcare has come of age. The industry is ripe for democratization. The Millennial Professionals are happy to bring in a work ethic that give allows them not only to earn money but also to create wealth in the society. In every other aspect of life, Science is leading Technology. Let Healthcare not be an exception.

While the Blood pumped by the heart is akin to the data that the entire healthcare ecosystem works on from an individual's perspective, we also need the equivalent of a brain as a platform that orchestrates the body with the nervous system governed by a process. The most significant engineering of life on this planet is that of the human being and this can serve as an inspiration for the healthcare industry.