Individuals will have better understanding on their genetic profile, the diseases they have and might have, and on the availability of healthcare, predicts Deloitte UK’s Centre for Health. According to the report “Healthcare and Life Sciences Predictions 2020: A bold future?”, individuals would have embraced prevention and is devoting time, energy and financial resources to staying healthy. According to Dr Yong Chern Chet, Sector Lead of Deloitte Southeast Asia Healthcare, we have been witnessing a trend towards greater individual engagement in health matters in recent years.
“Increasingly, patients are adopting physiological self-monitoring and health analytics technologies that support and empower them, as well as establish linkages between them and clinicians or influencers across the healthcare ecosystem,” he said in a statement.
Social media will be the main channel which healthcare organisations will use to engage with their patients, regularly gauging their needs and driving them to appropriate products and services for their budget and healthcare requirements. Online patient communities would have grown exponentially and become sources of crowd-sourced data, with ratings for drugs and healthcare provisions.
Aside from that, wearables will also shape the quality of life of the consumer, capturing and tracking how people live with and manage their condition. Consumers and providers alike can integrate information across multiple devices seamlessly to create a comprehensive view of the individual.
“In long term, we can foresee that wearables are likely to transform from fitness tools of the healthy to valid, reliable accessories for even the sickest among us,” Dr Yong said.
With a widespread adoption of wearables, the new clinician/patient partnership will be based on improved awareness, self management and prevention, replacing the paternalistic approach of the old.
“As networked technologies provide the promising potential to revolutionise health care delivery, we can expect the future health care hub to transition from hospital to the home to human (wearables).”
The home is where individuals will receive medical care in 2020. The widespread use of digital communication will allow the home to be the central location where much of the medical care takes place. In this scenario, specialist hospitals will be reserved for trauma and emergency surgery, while local daycare organisations deal with elective surgery. Chronic care and long-term conditions will be managed by the community. Many doctor-patient contracts will be virtual and care will be delivered to the patient in their home. However, the success of this delivery system will lie in the convergence of digital health and interaction, harnessing technology while providing trust-based, patient-centred care.
The centre recently released ten provocative statements predicting the world of 2020 in a new report, Healthcare and Life Sciences Predictions 2020: A bold future?
The ten predictions for 2020 are:
1. Health consumers in 2020: Informed and demanding patients are now partners in their own healthcare
2. Healthcare delivery systems in 2020: The era of digitised medicine – new business models drive new ideas
3. Wearables and mHealth applications in 2020: Measuring quality of life not just clinical indicators
4. Big Data in 2020: Health data is pervasive – requiring new tools and provider models
5. Regulatory compliance and patient safety in 2020: Regulations reflect the convergence of technology and science