The Digital Healthcare Revolution Is Here

Like in so many other industries, healthcare companies have been forced to reckon with the state of their digital transformation. Whether they’re ready or not, digital healthcare is here— and likely for good. 

Since the start of the Covid-19 related lockdowns in mid-March, telehealth visits in the U.S. have grown from 14,000 per week to 10.1 million in four months (as of mid-July). Even as in-person visits return, doctors expect telehealth visits to remain over 20% of their visits. 

Telehealth visits are just the tip of the digital healthcare experience iceberg. Contactless sign-ins, contact tracing, and remote monitoring will make patient experiences safer and help improve public health initiatives to stamp out disease. A survey of patients found that 83% of them would continue to use telehealth even after the pandemic resolves.

At our most recent Digital Velocity, Dr. Pouya Afshar and Dr. Ashkan Hayatdavoudi, the co-founders of Presidium Health, a San Diego, CA-based mobile healthcare company for medically complex patients, spoke about how they’re helping healthcare providers meet the needs of their patients by leaning into the digital healthcare revolution. 

1. The Current Healthcare Model Is Unsustainable

The co-founders of Presidium Health are both MDs, so they speak with authority when they say that healthcare in its current form (pre-digital revolution) is unsustainable. As they see it, the present is marked by high tech solutions at a high cost with low access to healthcare. The digital healthcare revolution will change that, bringing a high tech and low cost model that brings more access to patients.

Before healthcare companies can make that move, they’ll need to figure out how to navigate strict privacy laws like HIPAA. In March and April this year, regulations were temporarily relaxed to allow for a variety of video platforms like Skype and Zoom to function as telehealth mediums, but there will be more scrutiny on these platforms and the way healthcare providers manage the data created by these digital interactions. 

2. Data and Digital Platforms Will Drive the Revolution

Patients’ appetites for digital healthcare options will only increase, so healthcare companies will need to figure out the intricacies of privacy and delivering a comparable customer experience online.

The advance of digital platforms as part of the patient experience will have a far reaching impact. The prospect of better, more up-to-date records can hopefully help curb medical errors, one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and, more broadly, mean more efficient healthcare. 

For doctors, having access to more data will only help them make better healthcare decisions. Digital platforms that provide access to demographic information like patient history, along with wearable technologies that provide real-time health monitoring, will provide a more complete healthcare picture at the point of care. 

This is the model Presidium sees delivering the best outcomes to their patients, who are often caught up in the cycle of moving from home to the ER to a nursing home and back again. The digitization of patient data, which has for ages been a paper-based affair will transform what’s possible about the patient experience, but simply having data isn’t enough.  

3. Data-Driven Healthcare Built with a Trusted CDP

Dealing with data from multiple sources in differing formats led Presidium Health to a Customer Data Platform. With a patient-centric model that relies on an IoT-connected device (a smartwatch) to deliver real-time health data, they needed a real-time CDP that could help automate workflows. This would help free up doctors from the all-too-common tedium of paperwork that keeps them from spending time with patients. 

For Presidium Health, the Customer Data Platform is the future of the digital healthcare revolution. Even though it’s normally thought of as a marketing tool, the ability to unify data and help doctors understand the patient experience in real time makes the CDP an invaluable tool to tear down the silos that slow down care. It’s not just about taking data in, though. The ability to automate actions and send critical information and triggers in real time 

As part of a broader patient data supply chain, the CDP will help healthcare companies deliver secure, trusted, and personalized experiences to patients and doctors. For many companies, the rapid switch to digital healthcare means putting digital transformation into overdrive over the next year to build this capability.

Learn more about how Presidium Health is pushing the digital healthcare revolution forward by watching their full presentation, or sign up for a demonstration of the power of Tealium for healthcare.