"Simplicity is the keystone to successful healthcare technology" — Adam Tabriz, MD
Amiss Digital Solutions And Their Paradoxical Effect On Health Equity
Establishing Health Equity Necessitates An Infrastructure That Is Logistic First
Amongst many futuristic resources on the internet, one that I often revisited is the site called "The Medical Futurist." The site interests me a lot as it aligns with how I envision our future. Nonetheless, I also see myself as one of the rare individuals in the medical community who has taken off my "Black Thinking Hat" that comes naturally to me as a trained physician. Instead, I try to wear my "White Thinking Hat" by gathering information, thinking about it, and finding the relevant evidence that makes sense to me.
One of the pieces I recently encountered was concerning achieving health equity. At the initial glance, the article made me see the author at the crossroads of the disruptive technological front and the lagging public perception, access, and trust in such technologies.
The piece touches on the reality of healthcare digital technology failures to open the door to a healthcare environment where every individual has equal and more options to achieve quality health.
The article's author also points to the sporadic use of digital health in some societies like Ghana and under particular circumstances.
One thing apparent from the Medical Futurist article is that those lacking some form of infrastructure benefit the most from emerging digital technologies. But, in general, digital health technologies seem to have failed to close the gaps in scenarios such as women's health, minority health, and individuals with Digital Health illiteracy.
Indeed, literacy in any shape or form is a must. It is about one's health and ability to realize everything about the services they will receive to help them make informed and personalized decisions. And likewise, literacy applies to how they can utilize digital tools to enhance their health outcome.
Health equity is the offset of how and to what ease we, the patients, are willing and allowed to engage in our medical care.
Indeed, one can say the same about healthcare management and physician attitude toward digital health technologies. Furthermore, the medical community and stakeholders must realize the inherent potential of wearable devices, the data they provide, and how telehealth systems can support managing chronic conditions.
But, besides cost and strategy, one fundamental factor that hinders health and digital health literacy is that, as of yet, we have not been able to create a logistic infrastructure. The network is where patients and healthcare community members can efficiently engage and ease the path to health, digital health literacy, and health equity.
Indeed, a digital health tool is only an instrument, thus with lesser use without an interconnected network.
Of course, digital health adoption is always the foremost step, and so is finding the right tool. That tool will also accommodate the learning process for healthcare professionals and patients. Ideally, this hybrid interactive, collaborative system follows in-person procedures and a navigation style.
Whether the user attends the training online or in person is a matter of choice in the current domain. That will enable everyone in the system to fall back to traditional in-person modality whenever needed until the user is ready to go virtual. That strategy will prevent those users from being illiterate about health and digital technology and stimulate their engagement and adherence to recommendations.
Digital technologies, whatever their function, do not offer the kind of infrastructure I just described. And indeed, the fragmented healthcare application systems will benefit from strategies like gamification only so much without the benefit of a logistic system that synchronizes the human effort with the medical sensors over the secured cybersystem.
Disruptive technologies paradoxically widen the health equity gap, even though they should reduce their health interlude. But, just like our ancestors created the culture and infrastructure of the conventional healthcare delivery system, just the same way, we must be ready for a new course of medical practice procedures.
