The NHS has been under strain for some years, but the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the UK health system into disarray. Despite the government’s best efforts to increase recruitment, the British Medical Association recently found that the NHS is experiencing severe staffing pressures, and the number of qualified GPs has declined over the last year. Throughout the pandemic, the backlog of non-COVID related procedures has grown to unprecedented proportions, and other challenges, such as the ageing population, have continued to put further strain on the national health system. It is now evident that digital channels must be expanded in order to continue providing high-quality care for all patients.
The state of play in telehealth
Even in pre-pandemic times, a shift towards offering more telehealth solutions was evident in the UK, exemplified with the introduction of NHSX in 2019. According to findings by McKinsey, the usage of telehealth services has increased by 38 times throughout the pandemic. In the UK, almost 28 million people now have access to an NHS login and 16 million of these have registered for the app. McKinsey further found that government investments in telehealth solutions have tripled since 2017, forecasting further innovation and growth in the sector. In addition, and likely in response to that growth, many health services are now introducing more regulation and guidelines for their staff to better the telehealth experience. The NHS for example introduced new guidelines on good practice for digital health and data-driven services earlier this year.
While these steps towards offering better digital services are necessary, they also create questions around how health care providers can meet patients with empathy, despite not seeing them face-to-face. Empathy will always remain a key component of quality, patient-centric healthcare, so it is vital that this touch is not lost. The good news however, is that early patient feedback on their telehealth experiences since the onset of the pandemic suggest more favourable attitudes when compared to pre-pandemic levels. As patient interactions shift from personal to digital, healthcare providers must guarantee that genuine empathy exists between the clinician and patient. They must ensure that, regardless of the channel, patients receive individualised, patient-centred care.
Building cyber resilience
While sufficient data leads to better insights, it is vital that it is collected and maintained in a secure way. As a result, this rapid shift to digital solutions in healthcare has piqued the interest of cyber criminals, with the proliferation of endpoints and the sensitivity of the data making it a major target for hackers. On top of that, many systems are badly managed and outdated, but contain large volumes of protected health information and personal data – with ransomware attacks in the health sector increasing and becoming more advanced.
As healthcare further shifts to digital solutions and telehealth, endpoint security has be a top priority. Cybercrime is becoming more sophisticated, and healthcare providers need to proactively improve their defences as well. Just one attack can interrupt essential services and lead to data loss, which in turn damages reputation. Investing in digital solutions that incorporate AI and machine learning to detect suspicious activity is necessary to build platforms that can securely, and effectively, enable empathy in the healthcare sector intelligently for all patients.
At the heart of empathy is patient data
A better understanding of another person’s situation is the starting point for being empathetic. In healthcare, this can be accomplished by fully utilising all available data about a patient. Healthcare services now have a wealth of information at their disposal to help them better understand their patients. Unfortunately, however, patient records – which are now commonly in electronic form – are often dispersed throughout disparate systems and siloed between departments, even within the same facility. Making it difficult to compile and share information in an efficient manner. Such information must be uncovered in order to provide practitioners with the necessary insights to develop a better understanding and, ultimately, empathy for the patient.
In order to use all this collated, uncovered data to its fullest potential, healthcare providers need to manage data centrally so that advanced analytics can drive better insights. A single access point to such data will make it easier than ever to deliver timely, quality care and allow medical staff to derive true value from it. This way, medical staff can draw conclusions from all available information and ultimately make data-driven decision that will benefit the patient.
Having all of this patient information to hand will allow healthcare providers to better understand patients and therefore increase empathy, regardless of the channel of contact, whether in real life or digitally. Digital data-driven solutions can also boost staff productivity since records can be accessed more quickly, enabling medical staff to provide better care to more people. Ultimately, this will allow healthcare providers to leverage all available health information on a patient to better care for them, by arming clinicians with the right knowledge to engage their patients empathetically at every turn.
By Scott Lundstrom, Senior Industry Strategist for Healthcare, at OpenText