Digital healthcare is not ‘new’ - since the 1980’s, technology has driven broad and deep health service transformation, and health tech solutions are established and embedded across the NHS. But now, as accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of healthcare is being shaped by innovative technologies, and the potential opportunities to come from this are extraordinary.
Now, the life sciences industry can also benefit from technology-enabled care solutions by digitally enabling its own pathways to realise medicines’ true value.
The Foundations of Digital Healthcare
Traditionally, care was paper-based; medical notes were hand-written and filed in isolation, and communication between clinicians was slow and confined to letters and telephone calls. In our digitally-enabled world, the NHS has an electronic health record for each patient, building a detailed digital history of our health, shared care records and population health systems.
Digital healthcare is much more than replacing paper with computers - it’s an opportunity to make healthcare more efficient: to optimise prescribing, improve outcomes, and explore imaginative new ways to make a difference. It’s what healthcare industries do with the data about symptoms, diagnosis and treatment that transforms care. The benefits of digitising healthcare are profound - medical records are more detailed and accurate with real-time visibility, and modern processing technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can encourage proactive services.
Emerging opportunities
Many organisations are imagining and building innovative solutions for many aspects of care. An example of this is remote patient monitoring, which helps move care into the patient’s home. With this technology, patients use their smartphone to record biometric data, interact with clinicians and learn how to manage their condition.
Digital healthcare solutions like this are of particular interest to the life sciences industry. They allow pharmaceutical companies to have direct interaction with patients and collate their feedback, collect bespoke real-world evidence and embed digital healthcare within any pathway. They connect patients in their homes, clinicians, and the pharmaceutical industry to improve health outcomes and encourage patients to get more value from their medicines.
Along with mobile computing with smartphones, tablets, and wireless connectivity, other emerging technologies have exciting pharmaceutical potential. The use of wearable tech, for example, can generate large quantities of data, such as for continuous blood glucose monitoring and built-in heart rate monitors. Additionally, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) can improve the way systems learn, reason and problem solve, as well as enabling healthcare professionals to be connected with their patients proactively. These emerging technologies are likely to be the catalysts for the next stage of the digital healthcare revolution.
Benefitting from this Digital Revolution
The NHS, service providers and patients are seeing the benefits of this digital transformation, which will only continue as technology becomes more sophisticated. And there are simultaneous advantages for life science companies too. For industry, digital solutions can be embedded through local prescribing and treatment preferences within primary care systems to encourage policy compliance, or to create e-learning resources for patients.
Additionally, providing patients with remote monitoring technology can enable accelerated discharge from hospital and encourage patient selfcare. The NHS states that “supporting patients to be actively involved in their own care, treatment and support can improve outcomes and experience for patients,” and through the collection of this data and educational resources, pharmaceutical organisations can help to build patient-centred care.
Not having access to daily recorded data remains a huge challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. But integrating digital elements into patient pathways makes this possible. Patients can record accurate biometric data using their smartphone or tablet with connected Bluetooth devices, including; temperature, heart rate and oxygen levels. Combined with the subjective feedback collated, this data creates valuable real-world evidence tailored to their product.
Another issue that is prevalent within the life sciences industry is medication adherence. Research shows that as many as 50% of patients do not take their medicines as intended, but how can digital healthcare tools help improve this? Reminders can alert patients when it’s time to take their medicines, and direct interaction and insight between patients and their pharmacist can improve their overall relationship. Additionally, educational resources that are relevant to each patient can help them to understand their condition and medicines better. Overall, by supporting people to use medicines correctly, patient experience and health outcomes will improve, providing them with a better quality of life.
How to Undertake a Successful Digital Transformation
The foundation to making a successful transition is for healthcare companies to understand their customer's objectives, which must be clear and concise. All stakeholders must be on board and see the benefits of undertaking digital transformation, such as adding value for patients and empowering them to manage their health, as well as saving clinician time and improving internal and external communications. Having a real grasp of what they want to achieve and how they will measure progress will make it much easier to design a digital service.
Life sciences organisations should also take advantage of existing platforms, rather than starting from scratch. Very few technology projects are a massive success in their first iteration, so it is normal to go through several cycles of refinements initially. The service cannot be made more difficult for users once digitised, and if it creates extra work for clinical teams, adoption rates will be poor. Building in simplicity is complex and takes time - it’s an aspect of digital care that often comes with system maturity.
More importantly, finding an expert partner to support you in delivering a digital healthcare project is key. This partner should have NHS expertise and an understanding of how to access NHS markets and who to engage with, as well as digital healthcare experience and previous successes in projects. Digital healthcare transformation is a complex process, but by working with the right collaborator who can offer the best approach, the life sciences industry can have better hopes of success.
Conclusion
The digitalisation of healthcare services is expanding, and the specific benefits for the life sciences industry are profound. Digital transformation should be at the forefront of any life sciences company who is looking to make a difference and improve their services to better patient outcomes and pathways, while supporting clinicians and healthcare providers (HCP’s). By having a better understanding of what digital success looks like healthcare companies will be more able to reach their goals and provide better care for patients.