How COVID-19 is highlighting the importance of digital health solutions
Matt Norton, director of strategy & client solutions, S3 Connected Health, takes a closer look at a few of the solutions that have been rapidly developed to help battle the pandemic – and how they can help improve healthcare post-COVID-19.
Since the beginning of the pandemic the COVID-19 crisis has been highlighting the value that digital health solutions can bring to patients – whether that’s managing patients in their home environments, reducing the burdens and risks associated with travel to clinics, or streamlining care pathways in hospitals.
Three digital health solutions helping to tackle COVID-19
1. accuRx
To help counter the spread of COVID-19 as patients travel to and from healthcare facilities, accuRx extended free use of its Fleming video consultation tool to all NHS healthcare providers. The video consultations, which don’t require a specific app or account to use, can be started in as little as two clicks – making them user-friendly, regardless of device or demographic.
The solution is simple, cost effective, and private. Clinicians can use their own smartphone to deliver the call, without their mobile number being shared and there’s no requirement for costly extra equipment like webcams or headsets.
2. Docdot
Docdot is an AI-assisted mobile app that allows clinicians to remotely monitor a patient’s vital signs. For patients, it’s as simple as opening a mobile app, looking into a smartphone camera, and answering a few questions.
The results – which can take as little as 45 seconds to deliver – can be used to diagnose, monitor, and ultimately prevent the spread of COVID-19 with the help of a geo-referenced telemonitoring and televisit solution.
3. ACORRD
ACORRD is a clinical support tool that helps healthcare professionals in hospitals quickly triage and monitor COVID-19 patients with a simple to use web-based application on their smartphone.
Using a clinically researched measure of patient status called the COVID Critical Care Index (CCCI), ACORRD helps clinicians to provide the most appropriate level of patient care, as well as optimising the use of scarce resources by stratifying patients according to disease risk. This helps prioritise access to equipment or the most experienced members of a team when a clinic’s ability to manage the patient population is overstretched.
CCCI assessments are updated on an ongoing basis in real time as new vital signs data becomes available. ACORRD also visualises trends, tracks disease progression, and provides early warning for adverse outcomes – as well as clear oversight of longitudinal patient outcomes and timely high-level clinical guidance.
Crisis-driven innovation has underlined the importance of digital solutions
While the above solutions were created in the climate of the COVID-19 crisis, they’re emblematic of a much greater change – one which is long overdue.
Adopting technology can help clinical teams in healthcare systems across the globe manage patients more efficiently and deliver improved outcomes. These solutions provide just a small glimpse of the difference that digital health solutions can make, not just now, but in a post-pandemic future, too.
The offerings from accuRx and Docdot, for example, show not just how technology can offer a simple visualisation of a patient’s vital signs from a distance, but also how technology can improve clinical oversight. Easier, flexible access to patients gives healthcare professionals the potential to better understand those under their care, not just during, but also between visits. That provides them with a wealth of real-world insights that can ultimately help them provide better care.
This also has an impact for patients who benefit from better support and engagement with clinical teams. In addition, they can avoid the burden of clinic visits – which are a major source of stress for some.
Our other example – the ACORRD tool – shows us not just how digital health solutions can better optimise the allocation of resources, space, and professionals, but also how technology can rapidly generate new insights into disease progression and the effectiveness of treatment amongst different populations. Far from just helping us to deal with a current problem, this kind of solution offers real data to help guide new approaches in the future.
Finally, with at-risk groups preferring to receive treatment at home for the foreseeable future (or at least outside of the hospital environment), we can expect to see other digital health solutions, connected medical devices, and device-based services like these fast become the only viable solution for many patients.
Why the digital health momentum is set to continue
The pandemic has shown just how fast change can happen when we need it, and that momentum is likely to continue for a number of reasons.
Firstly, and most simply, digital health solutions are proving their efficacy – making the jobs of clinicians easier, and the patient experience better. Past experiences with problematic solutions like some electronic health records made many clinicians hesitant to embrace digital healthcare solutions. The success and benefits these technologies offer, however, means staff, patients, and other stakeholders, are more open to new digital solutions.
Secondly, much of the technology and supporting infrastructure that’s been created to combat COVID-19 can easily be modified and applied to other use cases – helping to meet a range of ongoing challenges with other treatment pathways.
The technology used by the ACORRD tool, for example, can be modified to help clinicians manage patients with other respiratory conditions such as influenza and COPD, while a modified version of Docdot is already set to help businesses assess and monitor the health of their employees and return them to work as quickly, and safely, as possible.
Conclusion
The response to COVID-19 has been a huge undertaking, both for our health services and the wider industry. The solutions that were rapidly adopted during the crisis have highlighted just how much of a positive difference digital health solutions can make in healthcare.
Only time will tell if solutions created to tackle the pandemic can break down the barriers to adoption that many health solutions have faced up to the present. But with patients and healthcare professionals already benefiting, digital health solutions will be a permanent, increasingly essential part of the health landscape going forward.