The hospital of the future puts people first

Each and every one of us is unique. That equally applies to our health, and it’s not just down to our genes or the epigenetics that turn those genes on and off.  It is also related to factors such as living in safe housing, benefiting from a steady income, receiving a good education, having access to quality healthcare and adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors, such as eating nutritious food, enjoying good sleep, lowering our stress levels and alcohol-intake. These are what the World Health Organization describes as ‘the social determinants of health’. For chronic diseases, such as diabetes, COPD and congestive heart failure, these factors play a large part in determining the disease’s onset, progression and outcome.

If our health is influenced by so many different factors, it follows that optimizing outcomes requires a holistic approach that centers on us as unique individuals. Discharging a patient back home is of little use to them if their home is ill-equipped to cope with their daily needs, or if access to adequate homecare is lacking. Yet today’s hospital systems aren’t always centered around people. More often, they are centered around episodic acute care, medical specialisms and technologies – much focus on medical expertise, not enough on people’s health journeys and experiences.

The drive for efficiency is already leading to consolidation and the growth of Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs). These are stakeholder groups, such as hospitals, doctors’ offices, homecare providers and payers, that work collaboratively to ensure a more coordinated patient journey. At the same time, a new generation of tech-savvy patients has emerged, who are more than capable of tracking and piloting their own health and wellness. This new breed of healthcare consumer will expect the same convenience in their healthcare experiences that they already get in other aspects of their life, such as their banking or on-line purchasing. In control of their own health data, they will expect to share decision making with healthcare professionals rather than simply ‘doing what the doctor says’. To address these expectations, we already see retailers such as WalMart, CVS, Walgreens, BestBuy and tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft getting into healthcare. 

However, improving population health outcomes and reducing costs is not enough. The so-called ‘quadruple aim of healthcare’ also calls for improvement of both the patient and the care professional experience. Studies show that patients who have a better experience of care generally have better health outcomes, and healthcare providers that offer a better staff experience benefit from higher quality, lower burn-out rates and lower staff turnover ratios. Philips’ Ambient Experience solutions for radiology departments and its family-friendly Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) solutions are good examples of how all four elements of the quadruple aim can come together in an integrated solution.

The important thing is that, however diverse or geographically distributed these networks are, what binds them together are the experiences of the people they serve. Seamless and personalized experiences for patients and healthcare professionals alike. It’s the hospital of the future that could guide us all towards better health. 

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5278805/