Five international tendencies in ICT and health which focus on the patient and data
22 de January de 2014
In addition to studying the state of the question of health ICTs in Catalonia, the Fundació TicSalut aims to observe the principal levers of change in the traditional health models around the world in order to bring them into the strategy of the Health Plan. In 2013, five tendencies were identified that deal with the revolution of data and the new models focused on the patient. This year, Fundació TicSalut has received cooperation from five experts: Jaume Raventós (Telefónica), Javier Olaizola (IBM), Josep Palet (Deloitte), Vicent Yeves (Itteria) and Miguel Ángel Montero (Informática El Corte Inglés).
1. TECHNOLOGICAL PRESCRIPTION
“With the use of the Remote Patient Management services, we are opening up a new relationship between patients and professionals, something that has already happened several times in the healthcare relationship”, explained Jaume Raventós, director of eHealth for Telefónica España.
This kind of service is intended to improve the clinical results and at the same time seeks sustainability in the healthcare system based on following up on patients at all times in their natural surroundings, in their homes wherever they may be. However, “The healthcare work must cover the concept of ‘technological prescription’, in other words, depending on the type of patient, one or another ICT solution will have to be used”, Raventós insisted.
2. LOW COST COMMUNICATION IN HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENTS
“In 1998, the WHO already talked about health communication as a key strategy, and the British NHS has demonstrated that it has a holistic view of all of this,” said the director of Healthcare and Social Services of Informática El Corte Inglés. According to Miguel Ángel Montero, “We must reconsider how we are communicating in healthcare,” and not only with regard to clinical notifications, but also in raising the awareness of healthy habits, public health campaigns and communication of healthcare crisis.
In the current scenario in which the feasibility of the public healthcare services is questioned, the traditional means of communication (press, television, radio) are expensive and citizens have become used to getting immediate replies, communication has to be adapted to the new reality. A wager must be made on the social media and open government and essential components along this path will be active listening and Business Intelligence. “We now have the tools, but we have to be more proactive and transparent”, Montero claimed during his presentation at the Map of Tendencies 2013.
3. THE BIG DATA REVOLUTION
“What do we do with all of the data we have?” asked Vicent Yeves from Itteria at the TecnoCampus Mataró-Maresme auditorium. The answer is big data: “In the area of healthcare, analysis will help us to take measures and draw conclusions for the treatment and prevention of disease”.
The impact of big data will reach all of the players in the health sector and the technological tools needed for it are already available, all that is missing is the political will to bring all of the main players into agreement: the health authorities, service providers and the sector companies.
4. NEW ICT MANAGEMENT MODELS: PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATION
“We believe that we are at a sufficiently important time for public-private collaboration considerations to become relevant and for us to analyse them carefully, in this case within the area of technologies”, according to Josep Palet, Public Sector partner of Deloitte.
“These kinds of agreement allow us to share risks and responsibility, but also opportunity and knowledge between both sectors”, assured Palet. At the roundtable on international tendencies, the project of the new model of the Government of Catalonia’s Telecommunications and Information Technology Centre (CTTI) was presented, which has been awarded as a best practice in the regional category of the European Institute of Public Administration EPSA Awards 2013.
5. PATIENT-ACTIVATED ORGANISATIONS
“Those responsible in the governments foresee a large increase in social and digital interaction along with a broader opening of information in public sector health,” assured Javier Olaizola, Spain Healthcare Industry Leader for IBM, referring to a study made by the Institute for Business Value, in which more than 4,000 organisations from around the world took part in order to analyse tendencies for the coming five years.
In the new era of connectivity, the management teams are preparing for the future by opening to the influence of citizens and patients, seeking to be pioneers in physical and digital innovation and developing experiences related to the citizens. “We are now at the gates to physical and digital convergence, to considering data as a strategic asset, to co-creating with citizens and to the mobile revolution,” says the manager from IBM.
To illustrate the emerging reality, Olaizola showed the TecnoCampus auditorium a video of the Kaiser Permanente:
Further information
• You can consult a report of the previous six editions of the Map of Tendencies via this link.