*Per Jean-Claude Saghbini
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact, exposing the most diverse vulnerabilities in the provision of health services worldwide. However, it is undeniable that this totally unknown scenario, on the other hand, has also forced us to discover different ways of thinking about health.
We had to reevaluate how to deliver the best evidence to health professionals, guide them in the decision-making process, and think about different ways to train hundreds of people who, although they were already working in the area, from one day to the next, needed take on new roles.
In other words, it was necessary to see this situation as an unprecedented opportunity to transform what did not work. To redesign and create a new future for health.
Innovation and continuous learning were more than mandatory, giving space for new forces to be catalyzed and to serve as a springboard for trends that will be vital in the post-pandemic world. Each of them, in isolation, has an important role. Collectively, however, they are capable of triggering a transformation in the entire health system.
But, what are these five forces that can help to redesign and improve the future of health?
#1 Telemedicine fighting vulnerabilities
The pandemic has dramatically accelerated expansion and adoption of telemedicine. Faced with the need to do their best to ensure patient safety, health institutions have adopted models that have overcome physical barriers.
For industry leaders, this alternative has, for example, had a positive impact on care specifically for chronic patients from high-risk groups, which corresponds to a large share. 80% of older adults have some chronic disease and 77% has at least two of them.
In Brazil, we have significant numbers with regard to the use of telemedicine and virtual assistance to serve not only the most vulnerable, but everyone: 90% of doctors believe that new digital technologies will have a major impact on the health care of the population . It is estimated that due to this advance, the telehealth market is expected to rise from $7 to $8 billion by the year 2024.
#2 Transparency and reliability in the best evidence available at the moment
Doctors often need recommendations and guidance regarding reliable treatments, which do not yet exist in the peer-reviewed literature, for example. This was quite evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of mid-September, there were more than 140,000 scientific publications and essays related to COVID-19. It is practically impossible for anyone to assimilate all this amount of information, so how could we reorganize that data efficiently?
New tools and processes were responsible for accelerating the way that doctors had access to information about this new disease, guiding them in the best decisions and closing the gaps between what doctors saw and what emerging research showed.
Speaking only of our case, we made more than 500 changes until July in the content we make available, including some of them for free. The number of professionals who accessed our material worldwide - there were over 18 million views by mid-January 2021 - showed the relevance and criticality of this content for those on the front lines.
An approach based on the best evidence available at that time it helps to refine recent research and bring down the large amount of inconsistent literature, allowing not only to make decisions in line with best practices, but also to foresee threats that could affect public health.
#3 Artificial Intelligence enhances the speed of clinical surveillance
Clinical surveillance systems have historically been known for providing timely and relevant patient updates and clinical alerts in real time. And the artificial intelligence (AI) has been an excellent ally of these systems.
Together, they allow you to more accurately identify a wide range of acute and chronic health conditions. With this, doctors are able to identify patients at risk, bringing very positive impacts, both from the point of view of clinical results and cost for institutions.
#4 Preparing for a health workforce transformation
The pandemic has also changed the landscape with regard to the health workforce. Organizations had to hire doctors who had just graduated and also, on the other hand, reabsorb professionals who were recently retired or who were already away from day to day. In addition, of course, to relocate and train other health professionals, in addition to doctors and nurses, on the front lines. And, more than that, preparing them for a radical change in the way care was provided.
Future strategies involving healthcare professionals will have to keep pace with the new pace. The challenge will be to devise new models that help not only retain them, but also develop your career and restore self-care. Not to mention the new skills, which are increasingly important to enable the different ways of promoting care and defining new models of care.
#5 Complete access to consistent data
The way out of all challenges is to integrate and provide access to the right, complete and consistent information. 86% of people who are part of some form of the health chain claims that incorrect or poor quality data affect patient safety and are sources of increased costs.
COVID-19 demonstrated that there are not only tenuous connections between public health and medical definitions, but also that there are ways to quickly establish these links. In fact, all the changes that have been going on for almost two decades could be traced if we looked at historical data. However, as many data are decentralized, unstructured, inconsistent or owned by the patient or the institution, this is not an easy task.
Broader access to information facilitates interactions across the health ecosystem. With this, we can drastically improve the coordination of care and move closer to a truly patient-centered care model.
* Jean-Claude Saghbini, Senior Vice President and CTO at Wolters Kluwer Health
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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