Smarter Healthcare
To build a smarter system, healthcare solutions need to be instrumented, interconnected and intelligent
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The Japanese are watching their waistlines—and so is their government
A new law now requires citizens between the ages of 40 and 74 to measure their midsections during annual checkups. Diet recommendations and further weight-loss education await those whose girth exceeds established limits.
Whether this regulation is seen as "big brother" medicine or simply a more proactive wellness strategy, it is a sign of things to come: the world's healthcare solutions need to change. Using tools like electronic medical records, wireless computing devices and health support networks, healthcare can be smarter.
In fact, much of smarter healthcare is not focused on the next big breakthrough in medical research. Smarter healthcare solutions start with the individual. Take the Medical Home model, for example. Primary care physicians act as "coaches," leading a team that manages a patient's wellness, preventive and chronic care needs. The doctor spends more time with each person, is available via e-mail and phone for consultation, offers expanded hours and coordinates care across the individual's entire care team.
Emergency rooms are extremely stressful and unpredictable places. Toronto East General Hospital recently introduced a wireless communication device called the Vocera communicator, implemented with IBM. It allows workers to communicate with security by simply double-tapping the device. Users can also control the device with naturally spoken commands. Vocera has reduced response time to "Code White" alarms for security incidents from two and half minutes to 59 seconds. The solution also cuts down phone tag, overhead paging and the need to physically search for a person, making it easier for staff to communicate quickly, securely and efficiently throughout the hospital.
For the 800-bed Kingston General Hospital in Ontario, Vocera is the "must have" communications tool that nurses found helped to reduce by 25% the time they spent on phone calls, paging and tracking people down, while increasing the time spent on direct patient care.
For more than a decade, Google has been a worldwide healthcare information resource. Now Google, IBM and Continua Health Alliance have partnered to allow individuals to create personal health profiles—capturing information about medical conditions, allergies and illnesses.
The partnership even lets users import records and prescription histories from hospitals, labs and pharmacies. For example:
- A busy mom can receive daily electronic updates on the health status of an aging parent who lives alone, is suffering from high blood pressure, and is on multiple medications.
- A traveling businessperson, who is diabetic and training for a marathon, can have a real-time discussion about her blood sugar levels and heart rate with her coach hundreds of miles away.
Patient Centered Medical Home
Interest in the Medical Home model of primary healthcare is building in the United States and has caught on globally as well.
Notably, physicians, healthcare leaders, insurers, legislators, large companies and other stakeholders are focused on the fact that the Medical Home model of care improves quality and patient satisfaction and contributes to lower overall healthcare costs.
IBM has just launched a new point of view on the topic: Patient Centered Medical Home: What, Why and How?. You can download the paper and also watch a group of experts discussing the importance of using IT in combination with the Medical Home primary care model for better, smarter outcomes in this new video.
Patient-centric healthcare
By 2010, 30% of the data stored on the world's computers will be medical images. The trouble is, all of that information is trapped, disconnected. Let's make it smart.
What else might we expect from a smarter healthcare system?
Information isn't stranded on islands
Smarter healthcare is interconnected. Like Spain's Servicio Extremeño de Salud (SES), where each location had its own patient records system. The organization took steps to create a global platform, connecting almost 13,000 professionals with a scheduling system that manages nine million outpatient visits a year.
Expertise needs no passport
The island of Tristan da Cunha is more than 1,665 miles west of Cape Town, South Africa, and is accessible only by a week-long boat trip. Through "Project Tristan," satellite communications and remotely supported electronic health record (EHR) technology allow medical experts from around the world to assist island clinicians with diagnoses and emergency support.
What is a PHR and what is an EHR?
These two acronyms will see a lot of airtime in the next several years. But what do they mean?
PHR The personal health record (PHR) is an electronic, universally available, lifelong resource of health information used by individuals to make health decisions. People own and manage their information in the PHR, which comes from healthcare providers and the individual. The PHR is maintained in a secure and private environment, with the individual determining rights of access. The PHR is separate from and does not replace the legal record of any provider.
EHRAn electronic health record refers to a medical record in digital format. An EHR is usually accessed on a computer, often over a network. It may be made up of electronic medical records (EMRs) from many locations or sources. The data can includes patient demographics, medical history, medicine and allergy lists (including immunization status), laboratory test results, radiology images, billing records and advanced directives.
The primary distinction between a PHR and an EHR is that the patient controls information in the PHR, while the doctor or hospital—or both—controls information in the EHR.
