Mobile computing, telecare, social media, wearable devices and other technologies are transforming the patient experience. Patients can now be constantly connected with a network of formal and informal caregivers that can supervise and support their daily routine and provide seamless access to healthcare services when necessary.
We recently investigated this era of “hyper-connected” patients and citizens with IDC, to review how this opens the door to a vast array of new opportunities for disease control and management, in particular chronic care conditions. While most countries are striving to handle the steady growth in chronic diseases and associated costs, it is imperative that healthcare systems make smarter use of new opportunities to further improve patients’ lives.
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, are the leading cause of premature death and disability globally, accounting for 60% of all deaths worldwide and over 40% of the global burden in terms of loss of healthy life years, according to the World Health Organisation.
Europe has the highest burden of chronic diseases globally, being responsible for over 90% of all deaths in the region, with 86% of all deaths caused by five NCDs: diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and mental disorders.
Most of the main chronic diseases and their complications are largely preventable through effective measures. The majority of these risk factors are related to harmful lifestyle choices such as smoking, a sedentary lifestyle and an unhealthy diet. The good news is that the leading factors responsible for the largest share of disease burden are potentially avoidable, or “modifiable”, opening up new opportunities for healthcare systems.
Effective public health interventions and policies aimed at common health risk factors can lead to improved health status and quality of life of the population, and also yield substantial savings on costs associated with chronic diseases, due to reductions in healthcare costs and gains in economic productivity. However, it has been estimated that, despite the potential cost-effectiveness of preventive interventions, European countries spend as much as 97% of health budgets on curative care, whereas less than 5% is invested in prevention.
At these rates, it is clear that Europe will not be able to afford the current pace of healthcare expenditure growth. With healthcare costs growing faster than overall economies, it is high time that healthcare systems became truly proactive, adopting a holistic approach to a patient and maximising preventative efforts that can help keep people healthy for longer, at the least possible cost.
Patients are moving into a different era of connected worlds. The rapid expansion of the use of smartphones and 3G and 4G networks has triggered expanded use of health, wellness and fitness mobile devices and apps. Patients can access health information and monitor their daily activities, such as exercise and diet, through smartphones and tablets – with instant access to their performance results.
Patients can then share their performance results through social networks and engage in lifestyle improvement games with their peers. Furthermore, increased availability of low-cost sensors has led to their integration into a broad range of mobile and wearable devices, such as smartphones, smart watches, wristbands and even clothing that can sense and track their physical activity, calorie intake, body temperature and other indicators.
This era of “hyper-connected” patients and citizens also opens up a vast array of new opportunities to improve the management of chronic diseases and to proactively engage with patients.
But, it is not an easy path. For people to change behaviour, they have to have sufficient motivation, be free from barriers preventing the change, and have the required resources and abilities.
Traditional health promotion interventions have attempted to ‘personalise’ interventions by delivering messages via printed materials and the Internet to specific target groups.
Today, social media, mobile, cloud, and data technologies offer an opportunity to incorporate effective interactive communication and feedback tools into behaviour. This will help to change intervention methods, promising enormous potential for improvement.
The vast amount of variety and velocity of data that forms the hyper-connected patient ecosystem represents an opportunity to better inform prevention and care delivery. With almost all major technology players looking with interest at the wearables trend for an answer, with particular interest surrounding fitness and health apps, more attention should be paid to data.
Data will be the element that will survive the app or device life, and will enrich the patient’s journey. The wave of socially generated information, coupled with the traditional clinically generated data, has the potential to transform how healthcare is delivered and the impact it has.
However, structured and strategic programs need to be implemented, with a particular focus on informing and encouraging citizens to understand and use the devices and apps that will support data driven healthcare. It will only be with buy-ins from healthcare providers, the government, technology providers and citizens that we will see the benefits from the future vision of healthcare.
James Norman is healthcare business director at EMC
Content on this page is paid for and provided by EMC, sponsor of the Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network data management hub.
