How To Advance Healthcare Quality Though Digital Health

Several decades ago, healthcare outcomes were associated with quality of care. Institute of Medicine data from 1999 show that medical errors contribute to more than 100,000 deaths yearly. Sadly, more recent statistics show that they lead to about 250,000 deaths annually. These numbers have changed the quality paradigm and shown that clinical measurements alone aren’t enough to define health care. For this reason, the healthcare stakeholders, including Access Vascular Health: Michelle Maneevese, MD, have tried expanding the concept of quality and developing a systems-based approach that actively identifies the many interrelationships that drive care.

Instead of improving clinical indicators, these modern approaches examine the entire healthcare delivery system and a patient’s specific barriers to interacting with that structure. Thankfully, digital technologies provide a comprehensive and systemic perspective of value. Read on to learn how they work in practice;

What Does Quality Of Health Care Include?

It is critical first to analyze how to break down the current, expanded vision of quality into four main components and how digital health technologies can help improve quality based on these parameters.

1. Clinical results

Are healthcare facilities delivering high-quality patient care? Traditionally, structural measures such as the 24/7 availability of experienced endoscopists for emergencies, key performance indicators such as the percentage of colorectal cancer screenings in mobile hospitals, and measurement of actual outcomes have been critical to answering this question. Take colorectal cancer deaths, for example. However, as technology advances, physicians can develop new digital performance indicators to provide more comprehensive and continuous insights into disease and health.

2. The Safety Of A Patient

What strategies should care practitioners implement to protect patients against preventable harm? A typical example is the use of EHR-based decision support to ensure the selection of appropriate prophylaxis to prevent blood clots in hospitalized high-risk patients. A current and less popular model is wearables to screen for cardiac arrhythmias. It allows for the early diagnosis of previously undetectable problems.

3. The Experience Of A Patient

How does the totality of a patient’s encounters with a care facility affect their impression of care? Patient portals, improved in-hospital mobility, web-based patient support forums and resources, and public feedback and ratings are just a few ways health technology initiatives address the conflicting aspects of experience. The growing trend toward healthcare awareness is driving the development of these tools.

4. Value

Can healthcare facilities minimize healthcare spending while succeeding in the above categories? Decision support tools critical to selecting the most appropriate clinical diagnosis for a given healthcare facility processes utilizing EHR and derived data to identify at-risk patients bring value to patients. These are examples of how technology improves patient experience and care while reducing unnecessary costs. Also, it’s impossible to overlook how message alerts encourage primary care participation and adherence to medication.

Digital Approaches Are Critical For Identifying And Closing Gaps

Sporadic, face-to-face interactions with patients limit conventional medical institutions. Digital platforms, on the other hand, offer them the ability to interact across multiple channels, in multiple locations, and at any time. While the industry needs more proof points for digital solutions, the ability of healthcare technology to creatively engage with consumers is a unique opportunity to improve all four aspects of high-quality care.

The Effect Of Digital Measures

What would it mean to use the vast amount of information to monitor and regulate the quality of health care?

1. Healthcare providers could better and more efficiently analyze and improve their outcomes. They would identify people who need screenings, monitor patients with chronic diseases who need regular medical care, and even prevent some chronic diseases through strategically targeted care and education.
2. Patients could also make informed decisions for their loved ones and themselves. They will be able to find the best treatment using the same digital technologies that tell them where to eat or have their car serviced today.
3. Insurance companies, groups, or corporations could improve health insurance to meet the needs of workers and members, cover treatments that have proven to keep people healthy, and select the best doctors for those treatments. Instead of relying on information from the previous year, they could tabulate real-time data or rely on more current data.

That said, healthcare could evolve into the kind of data-driven powerhouse that online stores or financial institutions have become – only this time, it’s for the patient’s benefit. As more and more information is collected about your health, you’ll get a clear picture of what’s affecting your health and the actions you need to take.