Is Digital Healthcare the Future of Health?

Until recently, healthcare was mainly the traditional doctor visit when one falls sick. Unfortunately, this stresses existing healthcare infrastructure and leads to long queues before accessing care. Often, frustrations result in verbal exchanges between patients and healthcare providers.

Generally, the adoption of changes in healthcare systems throughout the world has been slow. However, the deadly COVID-19 ?of 2020 changed that narrative. This epidemic created a more robust sense of urgency across the healthcare system, bringing dramatic changes within a short period. In addition, it exposed the lapses in the world's healthcare systems and brought the slow movement to the attention of many. As a result, many healthcare providers now rely on digital tools such as telemedicine to provide care virtually to patients worldwide.

Patients like 46-year-old Charlotte, who has the double burden of hypertension and diabetes, believe digital healthcare is the future. "Looking at how people were dying during the pandemic, the only safer means for my doctor to attend to me was to adopt digital means as a necessary intervention. I was afraid to visit the hospital for fear of contracting the infection. You could also see the fear in the eyes of healthcare professionals, but they had a job to do. Through a simple health application on my phone, my doctor directed me on how to check my blood pressure and adjust my medications virtually. I also became very familiar with how to take my insulin shot without help. My experience wasn't that great initially, but I began to enjoy it later," Charlotte opined.

Charlotte was optimistic that digital healthcare is here to stay, saying it was one effective and swift intervention to deliver quality healthcare.

Adding her voice, 19-year-old Eyiram recounted how her mother couldn't stand the sight of seeing her going through respiratory challenges. Finally, Eyiram tested positive for COVID-19 and was isolated in an enclosed area. Her 51-year-old mother, Emefa, immediately called the doctor for some intervention.

"My mum couldn't get closer because she was afraid of being infected. But, with the help of my healthcare providers, ?I understood how to handle the situation without panic. The tablet and smartphone, as well as the internet, were all helpful in the communication process," Eyiram shared.

According to the World Health Organization's (WHO) guidelines on digital interventions for health system strengthening, about 1 billion people are better protected from health emergencies. Also, roughly 1 billion more people enjoy better health and well-being through digital healthcare.

Critical studies show that the WHO recognizes digital health as a tool that can radically change outcomes if supported by sufficient investment in governance and institutional and workforce capacity. This would enable required digital systems and data changes to use training, planning, and management.

Along with this essential investment in people and processes, digital health can also improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of care, allowing for new business models to deliver services.

The WHO believes implementing appropriate digital health technologies is vital to a national strategy. Still, it may be challenging to accomplish, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

For the health giants, exploring the potential of global solutions and shared services should be considered part of Member States' national health strategy. At the same time, they should focus on generating evidence on the implications for the access, cost, quality, safety, and sustainability of applying these global solutions in health systems within vastly different country contexts.

In 2005, the World Health Assembly urged the Member States "to consider drawing up a long-term strategic plan for developing and implementing eHealth services…to develop the infrastructure for information and communication technologies for health, and to promote equitable, affordable, and universal access to their benefits" through its resolution WHA58.28 on eHealth.

Countries and stakeholders were urged to create a consistent eHealth vision aligned with health priorities and resources. Additionally, they needed to develop an action plan to deliver the proposed concept, creating a framework for monitoring and evaluating eHealth implementation and progress. More than 120 Member States, including low- and middle-income countries, have developed such strategies and policies.

The 2013 Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA66.24 on eHealth standardization and interoperability, which urged the Member States "to consider developing policies and legislative mechanisms linked to an overall national eHealth strategy."

Drawing on these resolutions and recognizing the need to strengthen digital health implementation, the Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA71.7 on digital health in May 2018. Under this resolution, it requested that the Director-General, in close consultation with the Member States and with inputs from relevant stakeholders, develop a global strategy for digital health. In addition, they identified priority areas, including where WHO should focus its efforts.

The strategy was developed through a consultative process launched in March 2019. It included discussions in online public forums, technical consultations, and meetings of the WHO regional committees with the Executive Board at its 146th session.

The global strategy on digital health for 2020–2025 was endorsed by the 73rd World Health Assembly in decision WHA73(28) (2020). It builds on resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and the World Health Assembly.

Digital health expands the concept of eHealth to include digital consumers with a broader range of intelligent and connected devices. It also encompasses other uses of digital technologies for health, such as the Internet of Things, advanced computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence like machine learning, and robotics.

The global digital strategy emphasizes that health data will be classified as sensitive personal or personally identifiable information, which requires a higher safety and security standard.

Digital health ventures in the United States of America saw a year like no other in 2020. Funding was about 72 percent from a record-high set in 2018, amounting to $14 billion invested across 440 deals. Telemedicine alone crushed funding records with $4.3 billion. Total funding for digital health was $26.5 billion.

With the dramatic acceleration of telehealth and its potential use, an estimated $250 billion of current total U.S. healthcare spending could be virtual. This shift will require improvements in information exchange along with broader access and technology integration. As a result, total funding for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) solutions was doubled in 2020, from $417 million to $941 million.

The COVID-19 period was when patients could not see physicians face-to-face due to the infectious nature of the virus, leading many people to experience their first-ever virtual visit. After that, however, telemedicine visits shot up from only 1 to 2 percent of ambulatory care visits.

Under behavioral health technologies, investments in tracking, reporting, and accessing care for mental health rose. In the United States, nearly 50 million people suffer from mental health issues, which grew more due to the pandemic's anxiety, financial stress, and isolation.

The need for help with post-traumatic stress disorder also increased among consumers and the healthcare workforce. With technology, funding for mental health solutions increased from $599 million to $1.4 billion in 2020, driven by investments from the financial community, governments, health systems, and education.

Furthermore, economic giants like China aimed to get at least 70 percent of their nearly 1.4 billion citizens on their telemedicine program by 2022. Countries like the United Arab Emirates and Singapore are already rolling out regulations to support this growing approach.

Regulations and patient demand during the pandemic created the right platform for healthcare technology. Past performance indicates a strong future for this industry. It is time for innovation by digital health companies to create an enabling environment of effective collaboration between patients and providers for quality healthcare delivery.

It's pretty convincing that several trends will continue encouraging even greater demand for digital capabilities in the healthcare industry in 2022 and beyond.

Digital healthcare has an 'on-time' delivery of medication and care and an optimized supply chain that will support patients to recover more quickly and free up hospital beds. With this, hospitals can decrease costs in an already tightly-squeezed sector currently being pushed by shrinking margins.