SUCCESS WILL BE DEPENDENT ON THE LEVEL OF INVOLVEMENT OF A BROAD RANGE OF PATIENTS IN THE DESIGN OF CONSUMER HELD RECORDS, FROM THE OUTSET.
how they will best work together to complete a full health ‘picture’. A recent HIMMS article – A New Patient Journey Imperative: Covid-19 and the Acceleration of Digital Health encourages leaders within the health sector to have honest conversations about how we begin to give the healthcare system the opportunity to do what was intended all along – to make us all healthier. This requires us to: • Stand for equity in care delivery and wellness management for all our communities. • Enhance and democratise the patient journey with reasonable access to cost-effective, common sense, digital health tools and services. • Invest in solutions that optimise care delivery and more deeply connect people within and across our healthcare systems. • Drive evidence-based awareness of health innovations that impact public policy and support equity, patients, caregivers and thoughtful technology. • Encourage consumer and health vendors to facilitate the direct input of consumers and caregivers into the design and development of their tools and services. Embracing digital equity to improve health equity There is a risk that in a rush to enable digital access to health information we could widen the gap for those already impacted by limited access
to healthcare. Collectively, the sector needs to ensure that equity is a focus of our governance and decision making and a key objective of our business strategies. Success will be dependent on the level of involvement of a broad range of patients in the design of consumer held records, from the outset. Including the end users in shaping how information will be accessed, shared and regulated will be the key to empowering patients to improve their wellbeing. Through engaging in meaningful conversation across the sector and with our communities we will begin to deliver solutions that are of value, deliver real health outcomes and go some way to protect ourselves from outside disruption. ©
these are also leveraging platforms provided by global players such as Apple i.e. Apple Health Kit. In support of consumer health records, a number of Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) vendors are working with Apple to provide standard integrations for consumers to access their information from health providers who use their EHR or EMR. Consumers are also generating personal data using wearables and other devices. Couple that with the rapid growth of other offshore digital health developments from mobile apps to make diagnoses from a photo, apps that can detect fluid behind an eardrum and AI that detects depression by monitoring speech patterns—powered by the roll out of 5G across the country—there will be growing pressure for an anchor point to capture this information and enable the patient to access and share it with their provider of choice. What do we do now? As leaders of health organisations, we need to focus on what we can do and prioritise getting the foundations in place for digital growth. While the health sector review has addressed the need to accelerate digital capabilities, we can’t wait until those actions are ‘rolled out’ to start thinking about the fundamentals of the operating model, infrastructure and strategies required to leverage the capabilities that digital tools offer, (including consumer held records) and
ABOUT THE AUTHOR As Spark Health CEO Dr Will Reedy works in the Business and Consumer Clusters (executive team) to focus on health and life sciences. Health and life sciences is the first true industry vertical capability established in Spark. Will continues to work as a doctor one day a week at Counties Manukau District Health Board.
Hear more from Will Reedy. Listen to eHealthTALK NZ episode 3 – Patient portals and empowerment on Spotify, Buzzsprout, Apple and Google podcasts.
dhconnec t . nz | CONNECT | 19
Powered by FlippingBook