‘How is connected care being used to drive the future of healthcare?’ | #Philipschat

To further explore this topic and get informed opinions, Philips provided a global platform for healthcare experts to discuss connected care real-time in a #PhilipsChat on Twitter.

Amongst the experts taking part, we enjoyed the company of William Morris MD, founder and director the Clinical Solutions Center at Cleveland Clinic, Jan Kimpen, Chief Medical Officer at Philips, blogger and activist, e-Patient Dave deBronkart and Tim Blake, MD of healthcare consulting company, Semantic.

With 7 million impressions, 514 tweets and 65 participants, this is the conversation that followed.

How would you explain connected care in one Tweet?

Connected care is a universal term that can have a number of interpretations, depending on who you ask. For example, an analyst may see the merits of data unification, whilst clinicians may define it by the way it can monitor wellbeing in real-time.

A big topic in just a few words, William Morris was the first to answer and touched upon how it’s all about ‘Connecting a patient to the right provider, at the right time, at the right place, with the right devices, and the right time’.

Jan Kimpen took a slightly different approach and highlighted the personal nature of connected care, stating that it entails “Digital tools, software, services and solutions to bring patients & care teams closer for more personal & efficient care. Tim Blake defined it as ‘models of care using a shared care plan to connect patients to health provers & their patients’

Other opinions included:

Is the healthcare industry ready to embrace connected care?

Despite connected care becoming a normal part of life for consumers, the Future Health Index – reports that only 47% of healthcare professionals claim to be knowledgeable about connected tech, while 73% of them admit that it is important to improving the prevention of medical issues.

However, Jan Kimpen was positive about readiness in the industry, saying that “big data, smart devices & cloud IT (with AI, genomics, digital pathology etc) allow for integrated digital solutions.” He went on to say that “innovation is complex  & needs seamless collaboration and change management, between HealthTech companies & care providers” before concluding with  “we have the motivation, capabilities & evidence for personalized connected care – improving outcomes for lower cost.”

This topic was discussed in more detail with e-Patient Dave in this interview on digital health and patient autonomy.

William Morris agreed, but again raised the information question, stating “most important is what we do with the data. Combo of data driving insight, driving intervention.” This is a passionate topic for him, which he further explores in his article, Cleveland Clinic: A glimpse into how technology can drive quality healthcare.

How are your organizations using connected care? Since when?

Healthcare professionals all over the globe have had different levels of involvement with connected care – depending on a range of factors such as costs, availability and adoption rates. e-Patient Dave kicked the answers off by talking about OpenNotes –the international movement dedicated to urging health care professionals share their notes with patients, recalling that “by far the biggest health milestone at @BDIMChealth has been its pioneering of @MyOpenNotes. No ehealth yet”.

Jan Kimpen spoke of what he’s seen so far by focusing on another key point; the importance of putting patients in the middle.

“With customer experience & key clinical expertise, we innovate & integrate solutions right across a health continuum. This spans personal health & prevention through to first-time right diagnosis, precision therapies & advanced home care. Importantly, innovation and the integration of data & digital tools must place the patience experience in the center of care”.

A few other experiences shared similar experiences:

Based on your experience, what are the elements to enable connected care further?

The conversation turned to the future and how connected care could be better enabled and integrated. For Jan Kimpen, it was about “Deep & effective partnerships  between stakeholders – care providers, tech & innovation companies, govts & system payers”,  where as for Tim Blake it was a more simple matter that needed “funding models that support outcome based healthcare.”

William Morris suggested that it’s about “aligning regulations and payment models so it’s easy and safe for patients to use – and it’s cost effective.”

The conversation turned once again towards the centralization of patients in connected care, with Jan Kimpen saying that “patients have the greatest influence – we must listen to their voice, advocate for their needs & help influence policies.”

It seems others were of the same opinion:

How are you involving policy makers to embrace connected care?

The final question addressed the experts and explored their own efforts in bringing connected care more into the fold. Tim Blake recounted his experience as “A slow and painful process – trying to convince policy makers to move to payment for health outomes, not fee for service” whilst Jan Kimpen suggested that “ we engage government at all levels – we must accelerate digitalisation to tackle population health challenges”.

It wasn’t long until the conversation turned back to the importance of patients and how they will be the ones to ultimately drive it forward:

With that, time had run out on a great conversation. Jan Kimpen rounded things off by highlighting a fundemental requirement for getting connected care off the ground and into the mainstream: “No one company or stakeholder can transform healthcare – we cannot innovate in isolation! Meaningful collaboration is essential.”