Three Healthcare Tech Trends Improving Patient Experience
Clinicians, patients, and healthcare managers all agree that our healthcare system faces major challenges in the next decade. They also agree that technology can play a key role in overcoming them. Unfortunately, that’s about all they agree on.
That’s because all three groups see the primary value of technology in healthcare differently. For clinicians, healthcare tech is about making care more efficient, more effective, and safer. Patients on the other hand want solutions that will allow them to communicate with healthcare providers more easily, they want better and more convenient care, they want to know their doctors are communicating with each other, and they want the tools to understand where they are in their care journey. Payers and Insurance companies are interested in both outcomes but are also conscious of the cost of such solutions at a time when budgets are squeezed.
Unfortunately, these priorities can sometimes undermine each other. We’ve seen this in the debates about the difference between consumer health and consumerized healthcare, and in the negative way that older patient groups react to chatbots and other AI systems. In this article, however, we’ll look for the opposite – technology which can improve patient experience, and ultimately patient care, in a way that all groups can agree on.
Different Groups, Different Challenges
In order to understand why implementing new technologies in the healthcare sector can be such a challenge, it’s constructive to look at what different staff and patient groups want from these technologies. And doing that reveals that different groups sometimes desire (or even expect) technology to work for them in different ways.
One of the most recent pieces of research in this regard is the HIMSS 2021 State of Healthcare report, a portion of which looked at attitudes toward new technologies within the different staff and patient groups. The findings make for interesting reading:
Clinicians are overwhelmingly positive about new technologies, and particularly AI and ML systems that can help them with diagnosis and treatment. In general, they see the value of technology as a way of making healthcare safer, rather than faster or more cost-efficient. Payers in this survey, represented by insurance companies see digital innovation in a slightly different way. They report that integration is the central promise of new healthcare technologies. They believe that by allowing the multiple fragmented systems to communicate that there would be a subsequent improvement to patient experience.Patients have more heterogeneous views especially since their primary experience of technology in healthcare is mainly with telehealth systems. However, even on this front patients are divided when it comes to the necessity of these systems. 44% of millennials say they’ll look to switch providers if there isn’t a telehealth option, compared to just 14% of baby boomer and silent generation patients.
With that being said, there were also places where there is broad agreement about the value of new technologies. These included the ability to improve communication between all three groups surveyed. Even this, however, presents challenges, because patients and clinicians alike still regard digital technologies with a degree of suspicion when it comes to safeguarding data and personal information.
Because of this, a prerequisite has been established for any new technology to be successful which is the reassurance to all three groups that sharing information, booking appointments, and paying invoices on digital systems is safe. This is why we’ve invested in resources to match the increasing interest in the role that blockchain technology can improve trust within the healthcare industry. This is also why it’s so important that healthcare providers use high-quality invoicing and accounting software that comes with crucial features such as the ability to manage and verify digital signatures.
Three Key Trends
So with all that in mind, let’s take a look at the key trends which are transforming the healthcare industry, and analyze whether they can be made to work for all the key stakeholders involved.
1. Patient Portals, EHRs, and Telehealth
For most patients, the technological revolutions sweeping through the healthcare sector manifests in one main way – the increasing ubiquity of patient portals, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), and Telehealth solutions.
It might come as a surprise to many clinicians, but patients actually feel very positive about these types of systems. Research indicates that the vast majority of patients have used a patient portal and that they are very happy to use such systems as they begin to take a larger role in planning their own healthcare – by scheduling their own appointments, viewing their health-related data, paying bulls, and even managing their prescriptions online.
When it comes to all three of these technologies, in fact, we may be quickly reaching an inflection point, where healthcare is delivered online by default, and in-person appointments and scheduling are only used for certain groups or where care cannot be delivered via telehealth platforms. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, in which many more patients (and many more clinicians) came to use Telehealth for the first time has only accelerated this shift.
On the other hand, there are two challenges that may stand in the way of more widespread adoption of these technologies. One is that patients from older generations are not the biggest fans, and in fact the divergence between them and younger patients is striking in this regard. The second is that – at least at the moment – there is no incentive for the developers of patient portals, EHRs, or Telehealth systems to make their systems compatible with those of their competitors. Because of this, there is a risk that such systems will further fragment an already fragmented healthcare data environment.
2. New Ways to Communicate
A second way in which emerging technologies can offer benefits for all the key stakeholders in the healthcare industry is in improving communications between all three key groups: patients, clinicians, and managers. The reason why improved communications can help all three groups is simple – it results in a better patient experience.
For patients, the value of communicating with their doctor is well understood, and survey after survey has found that the ability to discuss diagnoses and prescriptions with clinicians is one of the key indicators of a good patient experience. In a survey from 2019, for instance, it was found that 97% of patients preferred a doctor who would listen to and take their personal preferences into account before prescribing a treatment plan.
And while it may seem like more time spent talking about care would be less efficient for clinicians and managers, in actuality, the causation runs the other way. Research has found that where patients take a larger role in decision-making and managing their own healthcare, clinical outcomes improve. In other words, improving patient experience not only makes patients happier, but it also makes medicine safer.
Today, the number of ways that patients can communicate with healthcare professionals and managers is expanding rapidly. Alongside telehealth and EHRs (which we’ve covered above) and automated AI advisors (which we’ll cover below) has come a range of integrative communications platforms. These include apps that allow patients can manage their own healthcare, and even ways of bringing the data collected by wearable fitness devices into clinical systems, the number of which is expected to surpass half a billion this year.
3. Emerging AI and ML Solutions
Finally, let’s look at arguably the most controversial new technology that is making an impact in the healthcare sector – AI and ML driven chatbots and advisors. The idea of automated patient service bots has been around for a long time, of course, but it’s only now that we are seeing their widespread use across the industry.
Despite this, lingering doubts remain as to the efficacy of these automated tools. That’s because of one main issue – privacy. Though clinicians communicate with patients over channels that are just as secure as those used by AI chatbots (and sometimes a lot less secure), many patients are still hesitant to share personal information with these systems. Healthcare providers who use these tools are therefore well advised to explain to patients how their data is used, stored, and safeguarded.
Ultimately, using these tools in a way that is sympathetic to patients’ concerns is about balance. AIs will never be able to replace a skillful and empathetic clinician. But, by removing some of the busy work of running a healthcare organization, it does allow clinicians to focus on what they do best – treating patients.
The Future
These technologies are, of course, just some of the ways that tech is transforming healthcare. This is not the first time that technology has changed medicine, and it will not be the last. And, like any emerging technology, deploying these systems needs to adopt a patient-centered approach. That’s why all three key groups: clinicians, managers, and even patients themselves are focused on patient experience.