Riding the Digital Health Journey

2022 is coming to an end, and the evolution within the #digitalhealth industry is clear: the virtual world is here to improve our lives.?As with every project or innovative technology, we should take it in with a grain of salt and watch over the flaws in the digital world as opportunities to be worked on.?

There’s no denying how many steps can be condensed when using digital client journeys.?

But can it be more than cutting processes? How do Digital Health Journeys affect data collection and bring value to stakeholders??

These are only a few questions that developers look forward to answering. Let’s enter the discussion and give our approach to the topic.??

The rising of digital journeys??

Before dwelling on digital health journeys, let’s assess a patient’s health journey. As the name suggests, the patient journey is the patient’s experience within the #healthcare context for a specific condition or disease state.?

A typical #patientjourney begins with the onset of symptoms as presented to a physician. Then, a continuum of care unfolds with a treatment course to manage a determinate condition, leading to its cure or monitoring phase; this can combine multiple appointments and exams, making it a (sometimes) days, even weeks’ worth process.?

In a McKinsey report on Digital Health Ecosystems, an interview series with 22 key international industry experts, along with 81 participants of the Digital Healthcare Roundtable, explored three topics:?

1. “why and when healthcare players seek to provide digital healthcare solutions”?
2. “what kind of digital health ecosystem should healthcare players provide”
3. “how the implementation of a digital health ecosystem should be approached”

According to the interview data, there’s been a rising demand for digital solutions and technologies since the pandemic; 68% considered these highly relevant. Adding to this number, when asked about “the main purpose of digital health services”, the majority (61%) answered with “improving well-being by improving health outcomes”.??

In a traditional patient journey, patients are often external to the decision-making process and diagnosis phase. Thus, this limits discussion and adds weight to physicians and other #healthcareproviders. Also, accessing healthcare can be challenging for some and not having more options to explore treatments in an easy and bearing way can be grounds to not look for help in the first place.

Digital solutions can be an opening to these obstacles and open the discussion of a structure where the patient is centric and in complete involvement with their health journey.?

How Digital will revolutionise Healthcare

When combining the state of art science with today's technology solutions, medicine entered its digital and virtual era by developing innovative digital solutions that better the traditional patient journey. With mandatory stay-at-home policies during the #covid19 pandemic, a digital journey and acceptance became more mundane, and everyone's on board, from patients to healthcare providers.??

In Deloitte’s paper on the impact of digitalisation on #patientexperience, one of the main reasons for seeking a more digital space is the need to improve the “quality of #patientcare and treatment as well as the scale of potential cost savings in the long term”.?

Most countries in the OECD region are reported as inefficient and wasteful, meaning that healthcare services and costs can be optimised, reducing environmental waste.???

Digital is a way to provide improved processes on all fronts:?

• #caredelivery
• #patientexperience
• operation management
• human resources and even hospitals’ design and structure.?

The benefits are endless.?

Following McKinsey’s insights, a solution for these would be to add existing products into these digital ecosystems, offering patients an integrated journey and not a single digital solution. More, convenience can be seen as the main success factor for patients, followed by trust and impact on health outcomes.??

#AugmentedTelemedicine in Patient’s Health Journey

In a recent white paper published by IQVIA, the path for the digital patient journey in the next five years lies on many factors, from 1) embracing the AI scope in healthcare management, 2) the applicability of health data, 3) personalised care, 4) wearables, 5) virtual and augmented reality setting but also, 6) the evolution of telemedicine.?

#Integratedcare is an uprising focal point in healthcare and a front door for #telemedicine services.???

When talking about solutions, one that aligns with physicians, hospitals but also stakeholders in health systems, we think of a solution that creates an easy, insightful and improved patient journey; and that’s where knokcare’s Panacea shines.?

Creating the right patient journey, designed specifically for each #chronicdisease or targeted population, at knokcare we believe in continuity of care as a form of prevention. With Panacea, we can change how healthcare providers use their platforms to communicate and interact with their patients and, consequently, improve their health all around.?

Augmented Telemedicine uses #bigdata to strengthen medical insights, creating health status clusters to show relevant clinical points that can lead to personalised programs in hospitals and practices, but also for enterprises. With Panacea’s white-label solution, the idea of bringing integrated care goes beyond and connects patients, providers and #insurers in a circular matter.?

This convergence of high technology with healthcare creates efficiencies across the continuum of care and enhances the power of innovation.?

Providing patients with more liberated access to their health journey, easing processes and workloads for providers, and breaking inefficiencies for stakeholders is the utopic dream in the digital and smart health world.?

These insights are significant when setting up and developing healthcare solutions. Still, they also reshape how we view health in general and pave the way to a new relationship between patients, healthcare providers and health systems.??