Health IT Must Adapt to its Users
by Elizabeth
Change is hard – but we often make it harder than it has to be. The healthcare industry is in the middle of tremendous change: regulatory change, biotech advances, technology refresh, and changing customer expectations about convenience and access. And through all this change, new competitors to traditional care delivery models are springing up every day – like the corner clinic, telemedicine and remote monitoring. It can be overwhelming and providers are pushing back.
Next to reimbursement consistency, providers are the 2nd biggest barrier to telemedicine adoption. Healthcare providers like their mobile devices and convenience tools just like the rest of us. But unfortunately, much of health IT has been focused on EHRs, patient portals, individual condition support and consumer app functionality – and the greater context of care delivery within an integrated plan has suffered. A point-solution approach, without an integrated digital health strategy can disrupt workflows and make health system navigation difficult and confusing.
While the need for change is clear, as digital health strategists, our focus should be on simplifying and integrating the care delivery process – for all healthcare constituents. While we can’t remove all the backend complexity of digital care delivery, we can mask that complexity for our users. New health technologies should adapt to the users (both patients and providers), not force the users to adapt to technology. The transition to digital health is happening, so let’s all work to make the adoption process easier for our users – both patients and providers.
Posted in: digital health, Health IT, healthcare delivery, Telemedicine, Uncategorized