Digital Health

Digital Health will contribute with great solutions to increase the efficiency of healthcare systems. The experts of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation think tank, (the Future Trends Forum) declare that it will improve comprehensive management through real-time information systems that can monitor and measure all activity, be it health care, research, admin or financial in nature, as they have an impact on cost reduction and boost effectiveness. 

The digitalization of health is unstoppable. It seeks to become a tool that places the patient at the very center of all healthcare services going forward. Besides, the new digital health is presented as the solution to the current troubles of healthcare systems, which need to innovate to rebuild sustainable, high quality health care.

The experts of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation think tank—Future Trends Forum—have analyzed in the said report how digital health offers solutions for:

• Comprehensive management of healthcare systems by providing the technology to collect and use healthcare data, and design more efficient processes that lead to innovative projects.
• Personalized patient care: the invention of medical avatars will enable visualizing and forecasting healthcare milestones in the long term.
• Preventive medicine: progress in genetics will enable forecasting and analyzing the risk of suffering a disease in the future.
• Have impact on the individual behavior of patients: they will access directly their health data through wearables. They might be helpful to make decisions that improve their physical condition.
• Use health as a social asset: preventive medicine is the best strategy to save on healthcare costs.
• Empowering the patient: giving people control over their disease.

Technological progress in healthcare is based on three helpful technologies to first collect and analyze the big data of health; then, to analyze, cross-reference and process information through artificial intelligence and finally, to create systems with machine learning technology in order to support healthcare professionals in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

Besides the technological challenge, developing digital health involves socioeconomic and political challenges that forcibly present digitalization as an effective, sustainable solution that opens a wealth of opportunities to start-ups and business models. This development demands regulatory policies that support the digital transformation, both from the industry and patient's perspective.

The experts of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation think tank—Future Trends Forum—have identified the benefits of implementing digital health for the following players:

• Patient: digital health engages the patient more to manage their own physical state, empowering them and enhancing their satisfaction, wherever they may be, thanks to systems adapted to mobility.
• Healthcare: digital health will enable on-going personalized care in real time, which will better medical treatments and preventive medicine. New technologies will enable the early detection of pathologies and their diagnosis, and they will support healthcare professionals and minimize their mistakes.
• Healthcare systems: digital health will lower the global cost of healthcare while increasing its value (investment vs. cost). Digitalization will offer real-time insight into systems via accurate data that among other things provide financial and financing information.  Cost saving measures and efficient management will free up resources for R&D in healthcare.

Besides, the main barriers to the acceleration of the digital health benefits are based on several aspects, according to the experts:

• Data: technology must allow the interoperability of the patient's health information, empowering them to gain better access to their medical record.
• Investment: digital health requires a hybrid (public-private) financing model to strengthen innovation.
• Culture & Leadership: resistance to change in health organizations must be overcome in order to truly digitalize a healthcare system that brings greater added value to patients.
• Political and Regulatory Uncertainty: new political strategies must be defined within a multidisciplinary consortium involving all players.

In this link you will find the report of the Future Trends Forum experts to tackle the new global health roadmap in a digitalized world.