I am a big fan of 80’s movies – Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sixteen Candles, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. One of the things that fascinate me about these movies is how anachronistic the technology is. Even in science fiction movies like Tron or Weird Science, the technology looks stodgy and clunky compared to what we’ve grown used to. The 80s really were a simpler era – one where the latest mobile phones were hard-wired into cars, electric typewriters were more than a hipster affectation, floppy discs were actually floppy—and had top-of-the-line data storage, and where telemedicine wasn’t even a glimmer in the public’s eye.
The Evolution of Digital Healthcare
Looking back at that time, it’s clear to see the evolutionary path technology has taken. Those car phones became truly mobile, and then evolved into the powerful super-computers we carry around in our pockets today. Typewriters were supplanted by word processors (those were computers that only created documents, for anyone too young to remember), and Apple’s Lisa transformed first to increasingly sleek desktop computers, then eventually to our current ultra-portable laptops and tablets. Floppy disks gained an exoskeleton, then data storage shifted to CDs; now we rely on massive servers holding exabytes (that’s one billion gigabytes) of data, commonly called “the cloud.” And telemedicine, fueled by the shifts outlined above, has moved out of the hands of organizations like NASA and the CDC to become a care delivery channel in its own right.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
But, here’s the thing about evolution: it doesn’t just end because the story reaches a convenient stopping point. It continues to advance. Just like computers shrinking from room-filling, paper-reading monstrosities to amusingly antiquated 80s PCs, telemedicine’s migration from a doctor-to-doctor, consultation model to a patient care channel isn’t the pinnacle of digital health evolution – it’s just the beginning.
In fact, the current iteration of digital technology, which is based on connecting smartphones, laptops and tablets using data and applications in the cloud, spells the downfall of what we think of as telemedicine. And, while the experience of telemedicine may be relatively new to many, the technology and revenue model are woefully behind the times.
Similar to upgrading from an Apple Lisa to an iPad Pro, the next step in online care delivery will be more personalized, more mobile, and exponentially more powerful. And that’s important to both health systems and consumers.
The Virtual Care Difference
Virtual care modernizes the increasingly popular online care delivery channel in three key areas: technology, workflow, and revenue.
First, let’s look at technology. Telemedicine is an analog solution struggling to make an impact in a digital world. With its reliance on telephones and video conferences, traditional telemedicine solutions remain tied to physical objects and specific locations—carts, cords, and call centers. Even the word “telemedicine” has an anachronistic feel, like the green and black world of the original Tron. Virtual care, conversely, takes the concept of online care delivery to a truly digital place. Virtual care is logical, device-agnostic and data-driven. The patient (and provider) experiences mirror the digital experiences and expectations people have today—not those from 20 years ago.
Next, analyzing workflows in healthcare isn’t new, but optimizing workflows using digital technology is. And having that optimization actually work is nothing short of revolutionary. Here too, traditional telemedicine falls short. In the healthcare industry, the big joke is telemedicine turns a 10-minute office visit into a 30-minute video visit. While that may be a bit unfair given the added convenience and time savings it brings to patients, the reality is telemedicine doesn’t change the game much for providers compared to an office visit in terms of workflow and time requirements. Virtual care, however, flips the traditional workflow, enabling individual providers to treat more patients in the same amount of time by using today’s digitally evolved technology.
Last, but not least, let’s look at revenue. Traditional telemedicine is a transactional experience, closely tied to the old fee-for-service payment model. Long story short, it’s not functionally scalable past a certain point and its analog, transactional roots are prohibitive in the rapidly growing value-based environment. This is where virtual care really begins to shine. The efficiencies virtual care brings to health systems make it possible to deliver high-quality care for a fraction of the cost of an in-person visit, turning value-based reimbursement into a practical reality rather than a scary, dystopian future.
The Future is Virtual
I’m under no illusion that digital healthcare has halted its evolutionary process. New innovations, fresh challenges, and a dynamic environment mean we are far from an endpoint. As Ferris Bueller says, “Life moves pretty fast.” I’ll amend that to say, “Technology moves pretty fast.” In the not-too-distant future, we’ll look at telemedicine the same way I look at the trip planning scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation (a classic): with bemused incredulity that such absurdly clunky technology was considered so cutting edge.
Photo: shylendrahoode, Getty Images
