The Journal of mHealth Vol 2 Issue 1 (February 2015) | Page 8

Digital Health 2015: What Can We Expect?
Continued from page 5

- will always need tactile, human relationships at the core of delivery, but there are
many elements of care provision that lend
themselves to redefinition through the
integration of technology. Redesigning
services in this way will take time, but the
benefits of doing so could be significant.
Evaluating outcomes
No one is in any doubt that technologyled services can help deliver cost efficiencies, streamline workflows, and increase
industry capacity, the difficulties for the
people commissioning and deploying
these services is determining which solution to choose from the many different
options available.
Determining the outcomes and value of
technology-led services will be critical, if
healthcare managers, commissioners and
healthcare professionals are to be able
to make informed decisions as to which
solution can best deliver results for their
patient cohorts. Similarly, as the range of
devices and apps targeted at health consumers increases, then there becomes a
growing need to establish an evidence
base that supports the claims made by
providers, so that consumers are able to
make informed decisions.
Stakeholders across the connected care
community are demanding greater access
to outcome data, but demonstrating and
evaluating outcomes of mobile and digital
health solutions can sometimes be difficult, as the solutions do not always fit into
traditional healthcare reporting models.
That said, a digital healthcare ecosystem
has the potential to go beyond convention by revealing outcomes and returns
on investment that were previously difficult to assess. In addition to looking at
measures like safety and efficacy (from
clinical trials) we can begin to consider
information from economic data, electronic health records, genomic data,
labour statistics, and public health data. It
is now also possible to monitor data in
real-time, allowing evidence to be collated
on the ways in which solutions are being
used, actual usage data, and to record
things like compliance and adherence to
treatment and management plans.

6

The nature of the technology also builds
direct relationships between healthcare
organisations and their patients,

February 2015

making it easier to determine patient satisfaction and understand in greater detail
the impact that services are having upon
actual health outcomes. In an age when
the empowered-patient has the opportunity to influence many aspects of their
individual care, this means that organisations can begin to understand outcomes
at a granular level, thus ultimately allowing solutions to be tailored to meet individual expectations and requirements.
User data is routinely used in other
industries to showcase the value of a
product. With the convergence of market forces and te chnology in healthcare,
patient data will ultimately become a
more powerful factor in the measuring
of outcomes and value.
As mobile and digital health developers
increase the capabilities of their systems
then the process of measuring outcomes
will also become a feedback loop, that
continually helps improve the solutions
on offer. Big data analytics, and selflearning systems will further enhance
this process leading to automated delivery of efficiencies and benefits within the
system, simply through its use. Organisations that can demonstrate value to
patients and physicians by improving
care and outcomes will continue to form
symbiotic relationships with customers.1
Open-source for open health
In its 2014 report PwC’s HRI suggests
the move to make health data more
openly available will not only increase
transparency in the system, but will
likely introduce significant opportuni-

ties for the industry. Making data available through open-source initiatives has
particular potential for the digital and
mobile health sectors, as those in healthcare begin to recognise the value of having rapid and agile development policies,
that have delivered so much opportunity
in other industries. We are likely to see
many more of these types of projects
introduced during the course of 2015.
Technologies to Watch
The start of 2015 has been awash with
articles and blogs discussing the vast
array of technologies that we can expect
during the course of the year. Some of
these have been around a while and are
now beginning to gain traction for use in
the health and medical fields, and some
are still very early-stage, but offer promise for the future. Here, we consider
some of the technologies and technology-led services that are most likely to
become more widely available over the
course of the coming year.
Remote clinical trials
Already this year we have seen the
approval of Europe’s first fully remote
clinical trial. The VERKKO trial which
will be conducted in Finland will be the
first European remote clinical study to
include full electronic informed consent.4 A collaboration between Langland,
Mendor and Sanofi will study Mendor’s
3G-enabled wireless blood glucose meter
with a glucose profiling technology
(Mendor Smart) in patients with diabetes.
It will also evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of patient engagement and patient-