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| Future Healthcare Will Rely on Information Sharing Robot surgeries, portable electronic records and implanted monitoring devices are some of the potential developments in future healthcare technology. These are the views of Quicksilva, an independent UK-based supplier of systems integration and messaging services to the public sector. It has used its industry knowledge and experience to create a research report examining the healthcare advances likely to be in place by 2030. As part of this Quicksilva has compiled a top ten list of trends that the NHS and patients are likely to see by 2030 – many of which are already being developed and adopted. Public healthcare in the UK is being driven by the need to match finite resources against an aging, and less healthy, population that needs increasingly expensive treatments. By 2030, the European Commission estimate that Europe will lose 20.8 million people of working age and will have 34.7 million citizens over 80, compared to 18.8 million today. This overarching trend underpins how healthcare will be structured in the future with an increasing need for integration, automation and care outside traditional hospitals. In the UK alone 1.7 million people are supported by social care services at any given time and fifteen million people have long-term health needs. "The demographic timebomb facing healthcare provision needs to be addressed if the NHS vision of treatment free at the point of delivery is to be maintained", commented Gayna Hart, managing director, Quicksilva. "Based on our experience, research and a little crystal ball gazing, the future will see dramatic changes in how healthcare is delivered. What is central to all these initiatives is fast, secure access to patient data across not just the NHS itself, but also shared with other public sector organisations in the UK and internationally. The current debate on sharing patient data is therefore critical to the development of future healthcare." The top ten initiatives Quicksilva foresees happening by 2030 are: 1. Automated surgeries. As the Government aims to increase preventative health measures, traditional surgeries will be augmented by robotised systems that carry out regular tests for ongoing patient conditions and automatically prescribe treatments based on test results. These could be situated in city centres, supermarkets or health clubs to make them easily accessible and would be open 24 hours per day. 2. Individualised drugs. £100 million pounds is wasted on prescribing drugs that are never used. Some waste is down to drugs not working with particular genetic makeups. With more comprehensive patient scanning drugs will be designed specifically to match individuals, not only cutting cost but also avoiding potentially fatal side effects. We have already seen tailored chemotherapy – this is just an extension of the thinking. 3. Telemedicine. Previously used in developing countries, increasing specialisation will see telemedicine adopted in the UK. Surgeons will be able to advise and operate remotely from anywhere in the UK, avoiding the need to travel for specialist care and mitigating the postcode lottery for some treatments. The IT industry has first to eradicate any problems with network latency which delay communications. 4. Information sharing. An increasingly mobile population will demand the ability to access healthcare globally. IT systems will therefore need to be able to link up to allow patient data to be made available across not just Europe but the entire world. The proposed European Spine linking national healthcare records is the first step in this process. 5. Portable electronic patient records. Microsoft and Google have already launched online repositories that allow patients to upload their records to the web in the US. UK adoption will be slower, but demand will grow from patients looking for increased access and control over their records. These records could be extended to include digital information, such as video recordings of operations to protect surgeons from being sued for negligence. 6. Online pharmacies. Unregulated internet-based pharmacies fulfilling private prescriptions will be replaced by online NHS fulfilment as prescribing becomes totally electronic, following the NHS Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ETP) initiative. Regular prescriptions will be ordered online for local delivery by post or through ATM style hole in the wall depositories that allow 24 hour access. 7. Increased monitoring. Resource issues will mean that there is increased need for Care in the Community. For example, one in six of all working adults currently suffers from clinical depression at any one time and mental ill-health accounts for over a third of all illness in the UK. Previous monitoring technologies have been unable to ensure that medication is being taken at the right times. New techniques such as implanted chips that monitor body changes to ensure patients are taking the correct drugs would increase safety and reduce the need for hospital visits. The need for wireless healthcare has been recognised by OFCOM, which recently launched a consultation paper on the subject. 8. Back in time to "cottage hospitals". 90 per cent of contact with the NHS already takes place outside hospitals and fear of infection and the need for longer term care will revive the case for smaller non-acute cottage hospitals, specialising in recuperation and recovery. Data sharing will support this and enable economies of scale across multiple sites. This service could be met by the proposed polyclinics if they were planned to take inpatients. 9. Cleanliness issues with increased technology use. New technology such as handheld scanners and laptops that are moved around hospitals and are difficult to disinfect will bring further instruments into contact with patients, increasing the risk of infection. The ongoing challenge will be met by trials of new systems indicating where infected patients are sited and by instant infection tests like those employed in A&Es in Norway. 10. Health as a private/public partnership. The trend of increased outsourcing of services to specialist private providers will accelerate. For this to actually benefit patients and deliver joined up care data integration between all systems, whether private or public will be critical. "With the current focus on the Connecting for Health programme, there can be a tendency to ignore what will come next", concluded Hart. "While our predictions may not all make it into the real world, healthcare IT needs to put the building blocks of technology in place now to enable the patients of the future to receive the best possible care tailored to their needs." write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Computing News :: home page |