Technology: The Double Edged Sword

Fitting it all togetherUnlocking efficiencies

Questions

How do we know that technology does and can improve healthcare?

How do we know efficiencies and savings will made?

Is wireless technology reliable?

If we rely entirely on a scientific, medical model rationale can we reflect biopsychosocial principles of consumer empowerment and self determination

Wireless technology for sceptics

Where are the inefficiencies? Historical models of both healthcare delivery

and IT design

Replication of data gathering and processing

Multiple processes in manual and electronic claims

Market forces approach to research, development and innovation

Many people in many organisations working on the same challenges

Where are all the costs? In the human resource, time,

hardware and software

In the emotional cost of frustration and risk management

In the delays in providing service and decision making

Complex administrative processes to support risk management

What are the potentials? For the healthcare user

For the provider

For the purchaser or funder

For the government

For the future welfare of the country

The healthcare user A shift from a medical model to a

patient centric model

Involvement in their own management

Increased expectation of their responsibility in the recovery and rehabilitation process

The provider Accurate, real time data

Interconnectivity with the rest of the health ecosystem

Mobile applications at point of care

The purchaser or funder Ability to aggregate and analyse

population health data

Correlate funding with outcomes and quality of life measures

Monitor and audit performance

The government Have data to support policy and

purchasing decisions

Monitor workforce patterns and ensure adequate training and development

Ensure all the health strategies and priorities are adequately addressed

The country’s future welfare Protect the future generations from

preventable illness

Support those with chronic conditions or impairments lead full and productive lives

Develop a culture of self responsibility in health

The Double Edged Sword

Perceived and real risks in highly transportable data – security and privacy

Increased skill set in workers could increase wage and salary demands

Increased patch protection activity as livelihoods are threatened

The Double Edged Sword

Increased client responsibility could reduce dependency on clinicians

Business process redesign could threaten workers and lead to resistance or sabotage

Some companies may go out of business

What to do? Imaginative, collaborative

organisational leadership

Respect the health user and their right to be informed and to make their own decisions

CPI – Continuous Process Improvement as a way of working – no surprises

Inclusion in and recognition for the changes made by the worker

User Inclusion

We need to be very careful! “State-of-the-art is any computer you

can’t afford;

Obsolete is any computer you own;

A microsecond is the time it takes your state-of-the-art computer to become obsolete.”

“We have the technology but there is a whole bucketful of issues that need to be addressed."