Transforming health in the cloud

As we mark World Health Day 2016, it seems appropriate to reflect on the current opportunities and challenges facing health systems, the enabling role technology can play, and the policy steps needed to achieve more sustainable health systems for patients and healthcare professionals alike.

Sustainability should be the watchword. Decision-making in the area of health technology provision is often myopic, focused on the short-term. Given that today the average citizen can expect to live 10 years longer than their grandparents, placing them at risk of developing multiple chronic health conditions, now is the time to be investing.

We need to build healthcare systems which can cope with increased demand, particularly for the elderly. We need to be proactive about dealing with disease, focusing technology on preventative care as much as cure. And we need innovative e-health solutions to become scalable and accessible for all.

Increasingly active elderly populations are keen to stay independent for as long as possible. This means focus is shifting from care in the hospital to the home. In-hospital treatment currently equates to 50% of overall care but this is expected to decrease significantly. Up to 85% of patient care will soon be delivered in non-traditional settings, such as Virtual Care rooms in Sweden which enable the remote diagnosis of a diseases such as diabetes.

While not a silver-bullet solution, technology has an essential role to play in transforming health organizations’ own processes and business models.

A recent report by the World Health Organization suggests that many EU member states have started integrating digital solutions into their healthcare strategies; from using social media for public advocacy, to digitizing electronic health records (EHRs). While this is an important starting-point, there is additional value to be garnered from the digitization of processes. This can help  extend the capabilities of existing EHRs to encompass patient relationship management, mobile care team productivity and cloud-based collaboration. Microsoft-sponsored research by IDC suggests that by using insights on clinical episodes documented in the EHRs, as well as other behavioral or social data, health organizations worldwide could stand to gain $109 billion.

This is where the cloud comes in.

Storing, sharing and analyzing health data in the cloud can help tailor treatment for improved patient outcomes, enable early disease diagnosis, keep community nurses informed on the go, and empower patients to monitor their own conditions or get online support – to name just a few benefits. The cloud can even help health providers tackle the painful effects of the shortage of clinicians anticipated over the coming decades. Simply put, if we are looking to keep up with demand, cloud technology is to health what alternative energy is to the environment.

Some such solutions are already in place. In Norway, sufferers of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are monitored remotely via a wearable pulse-oximeter, to avoid unnecessary intervention. Next door in Sweden the cloud helps those caring for burn victims in Uppsala’s Akademiska Hospital to improve team collaboration, using a Surface Hub dashboard. And in Finland, the HUS district hospital is aiming to treat conditions such as mental health and weight management through its “Health Village”.

Scalability is now the next challenge. The implementation and adoption of cloud-based health systems remains fragmented and often limited to pilot projects. So how can we help enable the broader digital transformation of health systems to increase the accessibility and affordability of care and cure?

This is a topic the Microsoft Health team has examined in detail in a whitepaper published today. And what we’ve found is that for Europe’s healthcare systems to become truly sustainable, policymakers need to adopt a cloud-first policy framework  when considering the digital transformation of industries and sectors, including healthcare.  This is even more important as Europe works towards the realization of the Digital Single Market.

Adopting a cloud-first policy framework means building open, scalable and interoperable systems for industry vendors, customers, partners and policymakers. It means fostering the right digital skills which can empower health professionals. And it means fostering trust in the technologies themselves.

The European Commission has shown its commitment to advancing in many of these areas under the Digital Single Market strategy. Policymakers specifically highlighted the need to define priorities for standards and interoperability for e-health; just one topic which will be on the program for discussion during the upcoming e-Health Week in June.

Such efforts are welcome, but more must be done. We need greater clarity around privacy and security requirements in health to increase trust in the cloud and drive adoption of trusted technologies. We need to enable data portability to encourage the uptake of digital transformation, whilst also safeguarding highly sensitive health data. Finally, we need to foster innovation through interoperable systems and help healthcare solution providers born in the cloud scale up, to serve even more patients worldwide.

On World Health Day 2016, this is our call to action – a charter for digital transformation which can pave the way for more personalized, productive and preventive healthcare for all.

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