My reflections after visiting the most important event in the sector. Trends, curiosities and innovative solutions.
I’m flying back from Chicago after two very intense days full of interesting ideas. The US digital healthcare market certainly has a series of peculiar characteristics but at the same time offers a vision of what will happen for some time in Europe and in our country.
The AI inside the solutions
AI is now an integral part of almost all the solutions present. NLP, machine learning and image recognition are the most popular technologies. Search is enhanced and becomes semantic, allowing you to find and extract clinical concepts from clinical repositories and applications. Diagnostic imaging workflows include functions for analysis, screening and diagnosis; radiologists can count on decision support for reporting. Prescribing systems, electronic health records and CDRs include decision support systems to support Evidence Based Practice and differential diagnosis. Data analysis systems are also enhanced with AI algorithms to classify, correlate and measure clinical and administrative phenomena.
From interoperability to data governance
The “gold mine” of digital healthcare is data and how it can be used. Interoperability is the tool with which to acquire data, normalize them and organize them in Clinical Data Repositories. The goal is to “extract knowledge” from data to help doctors in the prevention and treatment of patients both at an individual level (precision medicine) and at a collective level (Population Health Management). The reference standard for data interoperability is HL7 FHIR while, as far as data persistence is concerned, there are solutions that allow you to create data models that are independent of the standards and methods of exchange.
Population medicine and chronic pathologies
I was able to detect great emphasis on Population Health Management which represents one of the objectives of both large healthcare solution vendors and many companies specializing in particular medical branches. Although the US healthcare model is very different from the Italian one, it is noted that the need to practice population medicine and the pro-active management of chronic pathologies (e.g. Chronic Care Model) is very much felt. It is a conceptual evolution of healthcare software which from mere data and information containers become operational tools to help doctors and nurses in this new role. Profiling and classification algorithms, clinical workflows, task management, are some of the components that this class of software adopts to respond to user needs.
Telemedicine to monitor patients
There are many telemedicine solutions present, among which the most numerous are those for remote patient monitoring (Remote Patient Monitoring). In addition to traditional medical devices, some solutions integrate smart bands and smart watches to expand the channels and ways of acquiring vital parameters. Less present, compared to the past, are the solutions for detecting parameters through face analysis. The accuracy of these software is not yet satisfactory and such as to allow certification as medical devices.
Engage patients
Involve patients There are many solutions available to involve patients and their caregivers in the protection and care of their health. Apps, web-apps and portals are the three ways to provide information, content and services to patients, as well as interact with them. The goal is not only to win new patients or “retain” existing ones (Patient Relationship Management), a very important aspect in a private healthcare context, but to improve the outcome of the results by avoiding complications and additional healthcare costs.