Healthcare Technology Solutions for Patient Centricity

Patient centered care provides personalized, transparent, convenient and efficient care where the focus of care is not just about diagnosis and treatment of a particular disease but looking at it holistically considering the individualized needs.

The primary goal of patient-centered care is to bridge disconnect between patient and physician through shared decision making, building trust and ensuring adherence with improved individual health outcomes and reduced total cost of care. 

Patient centered care models are also beneficial to providers and healthcare systems. The benefits derived by the providers are

1. Improved patient satisfaction
2. Improved resource allocation 
3. Reduced costs and increased margins

The patient centered care shifts the traditional role of patients and their families from passive treatment seekers to active members involved and engaged in managing the health conditions.

For successful delivery of patient centered care models at scale, there is a need for optimizing the patient journeys and improving healthcare outcomes through improved data flows, right connections and partnerships. 

Technology is playing a key role in the current shift that is taking place in the healthcare ecosystem

• Virtual/telehealth solutions are catering to consumer demands for greater accessibility to healthcare 
• Remote monitoring  - wearables, integrations with medical devices are delivering enhanced patient experience 
• Real time analytics platforms to provide proactive care. 

Some of the emerging technology trends delivering patient centered solutions are

• AI solutions for Personalized medical experience
• Block chain technology for medical records integrity, consent management, maintaining trust between stakeholders
• Augmented and Virtual Realities can be used for patients to control mental and behavioral disorders. Support providers to improve the accuracy of treatments 

Challenges & the road ahead

Integrations & Interoperability within systems: More than ever, it is now imperative to have access to longitudinal data across the continuum of care and need the systems to seamlessly connect, consume and send patient's health information. 

Enhanced workflows: For co-existence of hybrid care delivery models – in person and virtual, the virtual & patient engagement activities needs to be integrated with the day to day workflows of the physicians 

Evidence based CDS: The shift towards patient-centered care has increased the need for evidence-based CDS that directly engages patients and incorporates patient-specific data 

The critical steps for success of Patient centric care are

• Understand patient journey and its clinical pathways 
• Seamless access to health data across the ecosystem
• Data insights enablement to support patient experience
• Engagement and collaboration  with multi-partite stakeholders

Authored by Kaustubh Chitnis, Vice President, Digital Health Solutions, IKS Health. Kaustubh leads the DHS vertical ensuring profitability & growth. He manages customer relationship, strategy and execution of the new digital initiatives for IKS customers.