Health IT, MedCity Influencers

Will greater access to digital health improve healthcare in emerging countries?

Using a device that can capture a sonogram on a tablet, where it doesn’t even need to be interactive or readable until it reaches the physician’s office, cuts down the cost of care from all angles, while also improving the quality of care for the patient.

Chad mobile from UnicefThe expanding role of healthcare providers is not limited to societies with “developed” healthcare systems. Diseases, such as AIDS and malaria, prevalent in the third world and emerging countries are now considered chronic or curable with the proper treatment, leaving those afflicted with greater chance of recovery. However, as the cost the typical person pays for healthcare over his or her lifetime rises, the question becomes: How will these emerging societies, especially those in less-developed countries, sustain a rising bill?

The answer is they cannot. Hopefully, they will not have to. Already, healthcare technology providers around the globe are finding new ways to reduce the overall cost of medicine by improving efficiencies wherever possible. They are accomplishing this in a few key ways:

1) By enabling better-quality, more geographically dispersed care
2) By helping treat chronic, lifestyle-related conditions
3) By helping us hone in on diseases much more quickly

Enabling better-quality, more geographically dispersed care

In the United States, most women deliver their babies in hospitals. However, in remote parts of Nigeria, where I was born, it might take a pregnant mother days to get to a hospital. The journey there might be more traumatic and expensive than is necessary for a routine delivery, which might be handled safely by trained paramedical professionals in her village.

Today’s mobile sonogram technologies can help women and physicians in these situations. The women’s sonograms can be administered remotely by paramedical techs and analyzed by a city-based physician, enabling that physician to read dozens or even hundreds of sonograms in one day, rather than losing productivity time in transit to remote villages. This gives the women access to better-quality physicians, who tend to be located in cities rather than rural environments. Without ever making the trek to the city, these pregnant women can find out whether they are at risk of complications and should deliver in a hospital or whether they can stay home for the birth.

Using a device that can capture a sonogram on a tablet, where it doesn’t even need to be interactive or readable until it reaches the physician’s office, cuts down the cost of care from all angles, while also improving the quality of care for the patient.

Helping treat chronic, lifestyle-related conditions

I will be the first to admit that more research is needed in this area, but there is anecdotal evidence that suggests consumer-facing healthcare technology can help people make lifestyle changes, reducing their incidence of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions.

Today we are seeing widespread adoption of smart watches and other wearables that help people track their diets and activity levels. Even regions with reduced bandwidth and lower technology adoption can implement a simplified version of this. You have heard the statistic that more people have access to cellphones than toilets. In developing countries, text message reminders to take pills, exercise and make healthy eating choices can make health top-of-mind for people who are suffering from or are likely to suffer from chronic illnesses. While the most effective way to helping people with diseases like diabetes or heart failure improve their health is – and will remain – daily coaching based on their individual needs, technology like smartphones and wearables play an integral role as a tool to engage with these patients.

Leonard Kish’s wise assertion that “patient engagement is the blockbuster drug of the century” is still universally true. Technology is a tool that can enable consistent engagement between physician and patient and lead to phenomenal results.

Helping us identify diseases much more quickly

Gathering useful patient data is becoming easier and more affordable with the development of new, sophisticated healthcare technology. We are at a point where clinicians can run a battery of tests using a miniscule amount of blood and deliver the same-day results, at lower prices than those of traditional medical labs. While these technological advances are still in early stages, we will see far-reaching implications as it begins to spread.

However, what needs to happen in response to this growing efficiency in data collection is a move toward more efficient data analysis – not only for individual patients, but in a large-scale, population, comparative format. After all, data trends can tell us much more than single data points. Now that people can undergo tests more frequently with less physical and financial discomfort, they can receive better information about their own health. Thanks to cloud-based software, we can begin to track trends across the population at the same time.

This will lead to things like better ability to recognize contagious outbreaks. We would know sooner, rather than later, if multiple patients in an area were presenting with symptoms of Ebola or malaria, so we can be more effective in catching outbreaks early.

The Challenge: Custom solutions for unique economies

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other providers are in a unique position and must continue to be nimble and innovative in creating healthcare technology for emerging countries. Although some of the most life-threatening diseases we face today, such as heart disease and diabetes, have become universal, there are still geographical, technological and societal differences that make a one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare ineffective.

The most successful entrants into the space will develop customized solutions created in response to specific market challenges. They will build technologies that democratize access to healthcare in a cost-effective way. They will let these developing countries’ limitations inspire, rather than dissuade them. And they will remember that the role of technology in healthcare is to facilitate more effective, consistent engagement between physician and patient, not just when an illness is present, but throughout their lives.


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Dr. Nick van Terheyden

Dr. Nick van Terheyden is the Chief Medical Officer for Dell’s Healthcare & Life Sciences (HCLS) business where he is responsible for providing strategic insight to help Dell advance its support of healthcare organizations, medical professionals and patients through information-enabled healthcare. He helps Dell’s global healthcare customers develop a strategy and apply technology to achieve an IT environment that is interconnected, efficient and patient-focused.

This post appears through the MedCity Influencers program. Anyone can publish their perspective on business and innovation in healthcare on MedCity News through MedCity Influencers. Click here to find out how.

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