8 digital health trends emerging from the pandemic

What have we learned during the pandemic and what should we watch for moving forward?

These are two of the key questions that many business conversations focus on these days. On Thursday, they were approached by a group of digital health experts gathered for a virtual forum organized by the Greater Baltimore Economic Alliance and based in Rockville Biohealth innovation.

During three roundtables, leaders from the Baltimore area and beyond made it clear that data and AI are playing a role in changing healthcare. It is also an increasingly important element for the economy in a state where researchers, practitioners and innovators are clustered in academic medical centers, federal institutions and corporations.

But it’s not just about tools: to be effective, new technologies need to collect the right data that is clinically effective and actionable. This leads to a need for clinicians, healthcare providers, payers and technology companies to work together. Thus, a call for collaboration, whether between health services or between organizations, was among the strongest of the day.

“From the start of the project, we have to work together,” said Dr. Eun-Shim Nahmdirector of the University of Maryland School of Nursing master’s program in computer science.

Like so many other parts of society over the past year, the pandemic has brought about a lot of change. This accelerated the adoption of technology and exacerbated divisions that had existed for a long time. The event took place at a time when we have a year of experience in a pandemic, and at the same time reflect on what comes after vaccines and widespread reopening. Here are some trends to watch that have risen to the top of the conversation:

Telemedecine

Technological transformation has accelerated in many disciplines. In healthcare, a favored area was telemedicine, as people shifted to virtual appointments with closed clinics. It was an area where Baltimore LifeBridge Health saw visits increase at the start of the pandemic. Pothik Chatterjee, executive director of innovation and research at LifeBridge, said the hospital network has also increased the use of remote patient monitoring tools. Chatterjee said LifeBridge uses a mobile, automated tool to GetWell Network called Loop which enabled the automation of monitoring patients who were tested for COVID-19, as well as tracking employees for potential COVID-19 symptoms or vaccine side effects.

In the future, it will be possible to integrate virtual visits into more healthcare interactions. Ricardo Johnsonboss of Healthworxthe innovation center of the regional health insurance CareFirst, sees virtual health continue, even as reopening begins. He said a key transition point will occur when virtual health will be less “transactional” – that is, focused on getting a specific test or control – and more “longitudinal”. , where primary care will be completely virtual.

“The fact that a large group of Americans have tasted virtual health and loved it – that’s going to transform,” Johnson said.

Remote diagnosis

Along with telemedicine, tools to screen a patient at home or diagnose a symptom remotely are also promising, said Dr Kenyon Crowleygeneral manager of the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems at the University of Maryland Smith School of Businessand some AI Health Insights Lab.

The pandemic has shown “the ability to move more care services to the home, if needed,” he said. “If Amazon gets to the point where it can ship a package in two to three hours, the ability of a clinical service provider to get a test to your doorstep in a day or two is not far off.”

Interoperability

With new technological tools, there is more data. This means more technical work to combine the data streams, as well as to clean up and help the data work together. The need for interoperability has been particularly pronounced, as it has been in broader technology adoption, said Dr. Zariel Johnsontechnical program manager at UPMC Companiesthe innovation and commercialization branch of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and head of Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance.

“I think it’s something that goes beyond the specific digital health interventions that the pandemic has brought to the fore,” she said.

Social determinants of health

The pandemic and the racial justice movement of 2020 have exacerbated existing divides in society. In health care, this leads to a focus on the social determinants of health, which are the conditions in a person’s environment that play a role in their health, panelists said throughout the day.

Digital health plays a role in this area. Johnson pointed out that this requires tools that will collect data on the factors outside the clinic that are so important to the social determinants of health.

It has also led to new approaches to connecting with people outside these walls. Chatterjee discussed LifeBridge Health’s community mobile clinics, which launched last summer with teams of nurses and social workers leaving with medical equipment and iPads. They visited patients in areas where the environment meant a higher risk of complications from COIVD-19. This allowed LifeBridge to reach not only patients with COVID-19, but also community members who had unmet needs like hypertension and diabetes.

The factors that lead to disparities do not just affect health outcomes. For example, the same areas where the clinic visited are also more likely to be on the disconnected side of the digital divide. Reaching them with tools will also require embracing digital in the community.

“You can’t achieve health equity without achieving digital equity in underserved communities,” Johnson said.

Time to market

The need to respond to a crisis has accelerated the timeline for developing new tools. Taking what may become the most famous example, Crowley pointed to COVID-19 vaccines, where scientists broke the previous four-year record by getting shot in less than a year. There is a lesson for healthcare when considering the time to market for innovation more broadly, he said. Nate Weinerco-founder of the Baltimore digital health company Avhana Healthrecently acquired by Amalgam Rx, said a willingness to partner with healthcare providers in the pandemic has accelerated innovation.

When it is most successful, innovation is driven by collaboration between all healthcare stakeholders. Collaboration between payers and providers will also be important to implement new technologies. LifeBridge Health and Healthworx have established a partnership in recent years that will soon result in the first cohort of startups to participate in the 1501 Health incubator program.

Weiner, whose company went through a previous digital health accelerator program in Baltimore, said such collaboration is a good sign for the future of new digital health tools not only being used there, but also locally developed.

It was because of [the Baltimore ecosystem] that we went for it and we succeeded,” he said. It has a ton of value in healthcare systems, talent, and venture capital activity. I can’t wait to see what the next round of companies will look like.

Personalized care

As technology becomes an integral part of the healthcare experience, it can enable more accurate tools for an individual’s condition. Weiner talked about Amalgam’s insulin titration tool. It is an application that is prescribed by doctors and contains an algorithm to adjust doses.

“We see a lot more convenience with technology on the patient side as well as the provider side,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a lot more around personalized care.”

Worker development

In the future, more digital health tools will mean having professions and leaders who can de-risk new projects, strategize, and create a culture around the effective use of data. To that end, the University of Maryland School of Business is launching a new course sequence for its Certificate in AI Leadership for Healthcare this spring, Crowley said.

It will also be increasingly necessary to eliminate biases in AI and ensure that they do not propagate into the new tools that will be created. This will come with work on “having means to appropriately assess that they are not only delivering clinically correct outcomes, but are they doing so in a socially and culturally appropriate way.”

Mental Health

As digital health develops, technology that can analyze and predict specific needs can be applied to other areas of care. One of them is mental health, Johnson said. This is an area where we have seen the need for care increase, even as the pandemic has made treatment more difficult to access.

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Maria J. Book