HOW “DIGITAL” HEALTH IS
IMPACTING TELEHEALTH
Dylan J. Chadwick
Physicians Office Resource
Staff Writer
A
respectively) both released their versions of
digital health databases dead-set on rewriting
the healthcare script. These companies aimed
to create a platform for patients (or
consumers, depending on which side of the
coin you fall) to gather, submit and analyze
their own health and vitals information,
storing them in a cloud for easy use by
patients and doctors alike. However, neither
platform gained significant traction in the
grand scheme, causing many health experts
to posit their own theories for their failure.
Issues like data security, encryption and the
(ever justified) fear of breaches and other data
intrusions will plague the adoption and
integration of all things HealthIT. As the idea of
paper health charts and office visits conducted
in brick-and-mortar exam rooms are reduced
to coded 1's, 0's and wifi connections,
unknown obstacles often come to life.
Other hesitations include the (lack of )
interoperability between the various digital
health systems. When it comes to
functionality, no amount of bells and techwhistles can account for a failure to interact
with existing or forthcoming technology. This
often creates a period of tension within the
first stages of new adoption. Manufacturers
and developers must often work out the
"bugs" they didn't quite see in the whiteboard
stages, while consumers wait for an update.
scant two summers ago, I started
researching the impending
arrival of telemedicine. Perhaps I
was smitten by the prospect of
seeing actual crossover
between legitimate medical practice and
telecommunications technology. The telehealth
industry would rise to ubiquity within
medicine. It'd find and construct that hybrid
new-fangled technology, taking all the best
bits of mobile phones, internet chats, skype,
video conferencing, downloadable mobile
apps and every other pocket sized whatzit
capable of finding Wi-Fi. Then, it'd use that
creation it to actually practice medicine. It
seemed only a bit novel then. Keep in mind,
this was still an iOS 5 world and "Facetime" was
just barely an app. Now, technological
capabilities reinvent themselves every 6 months
leaving last month's techblog buzzword a dusty,
dated and irrelevant relic of an arcane time.
We're even closer now than we were then.
Since that time of initial research,
"telehealth" has quickly become a broad
umbrella term for other uniqe deliveries of
healthcare. Myriad subsets, ideological
cousins perhaps, of telehealth have popped
onto my radar. Words like ‘mHealth” (colloquial
for “mobile health") and "Digital Health" now
dangle the prospect of redefining the entire
office-visit paradigm to mere touchscreen
taps. Digital health may finally be catching on.
The Sharp Edge of the Sword: Data
Ultimately though? The advantages of a
solid digital health system far outweigh any
perceived disadvantages. Mobile technology
really needs no advocates at this point. It
Digital Health Hangups
In its initial stages, digital health ran a slow
start. Ubiquitous tech titans like Microsoft and
Google (Healthvault and Google Health
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