A simple and quite comprehensive preview on Benefits of technology in medicine, Medical Technology Advances and Necessity
Discussing the Benefits of medical technology in both healthcare United states and beyond
Undoubtedly, Technology is rapidly advancing and bringing about new methodology and practice. This advances has influenced all facets of human life and existence positively and otherwise.
Regardless of this development, the instability of wellness and increase in health insecurities has called for intense and more clinical advancement in the healthcare sector
The response to this call is recommendable but we in no doubt need more due to the vast effects of the rapid climate change, Natural and man made disasters, wars, global illiteracy and unawareness index and ultimately, The Business factor which involves health providers, market and policy makers.
let’s look at
Specialty drugs: used to treat rare, complex, or chronic diseases and demand great level of involvement from the healthcare provider.
In addition to special storage and shipping, they may need access to these drugs which can be limited, and they are becoming important for health organizations as they are starting to enter the market at a faster speed as the research pipeline continues to expand. This becomes a more interesting topic due to its high costs.
Despite the fact that 4% of patients use specialty drugs, a quarter of the total US drug spending is due to specialty drugs.
Diagnostics, drugs, and equipment keep driving the total care spending.
In the short term, due to the uncertainty revolving around the bio-similar market and the fast-paced innovation in personalized medicine, the concentration of pharmacy benefit managers will carry on being on unit cost savings, whereas in the long term, the focus is on commercial and self-funded plan sponsors, along with how best to manage the economic risk in the long term.
This problem can solely change the structure of insurance product offerings and patient coverage.
Kumar (2011) discusses the reasons behind the lack of effect of digital revolution in healthcare cost reduction and the need for a measurement of the proportion of patients who do not have access to healthcare because of costs of care.
Another issue is that patients can access infused drug therapies in different places (hospitals, infusion centers, physician’s office, and patient’s home) at very different costs.
As an example, the costs for a standard dose of a rheumatoid arthritis infused medicine can change from $3259 for the medicine itself and $148 for administration costs when administrated at the patient’s house, whereas the drug and administration cost will rise to $5393 and $425, respectively, when implemented as an outpatient procedure at a hospital according to Santilli (2015).
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This shows that, surprisingly, the hospital setting is the least cost-effective healthcare center for infused drugs. Regardless, according to a recent CVS report, infused drugs are increasingly being administrated in hospitals leading to highest costs and least cost efficiency.
In general, a lot of things are happening in terms of drugs and equipment cost. As tools, technology, applications, and new practices are being introduced at a faster rate, companies should be well abreast of all the changes. By seeing all the higher cost of doing infused drugs at hospitals as opposed to homes, healthcare organizations can increase the shift of those practices to homes.
There have also been new improvements in personalized medicine which can have great effects on healthcare industry.
Due to the dramatic reductions in DNA sequencing following the development of second-generation sequencing platforms in 2008, molecular diagnostics are increasingly being considered to be cost effective enough to be used as a standard medical test, both prospectively for risk assessment and for confirmation of diseases.
Among the technological advancements, one that has undoubtedly had a great influence on this economic shift is DNA sequencing which is mapping of the human genome. Since 25 years ago, the A. Shaygan 229 cost of sequencing a human-sized genome has fallen dramatically from $100 million to $1000.
Since the Second World War, the main driver of costs in healthcare has been the higher price of newer technologies which has also been impacting the insurance cover average costs as well.
Again we can see the impact of different change perspectives on each other. The legislative aspects have effects on technological aspects in terms of R&D funding and consequently the cost of those incoming technologies and eventually people in specific demographics and socioeconomic status.
Necessity of medical technology
With all the changes in population and demand, healthcare organizations are in necessary need of leveraging the value of technology advancements in order to be cost-effective, competitive, and responsive.
Technological tools assisting decision makers in analyzing data and leveraging the power of big data and information technology systems have become pillars of improving quality of care, identifying trends, anticipating changes, and controlling costs.
Electronic health records (EHR) have shown to have great benefits in increasing outcomes for healthcare organizations in 92% of studies in the literature despite low patient engagement numbers.
Healthcare organizations should leverage the developments in technology and computing in order to increase patient engagement and satisfaction, reduce costs, anticipate changes, and learn to develop intangible assets in order to integrate and do Landscape Analysis
Based on a report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences, the quality of healthcare in the United States is weaker compared to biomedical knowledge and that this gap in quality is due to organizational technological incompetency, rather than of individual physicians.
Every year new technologies are emerging focused on empowering patients and providers in order for organizations to better manage changes and costs. Furthermore, innovation in biotech and pharmaceutical industries have led to faster market entry and stronger research and development pipeline.
As an example, a sudden change of speed in cost per genome has occurred in 2008 reflecting the transition from Sangerbased sequencing to next-generation genome sequencing technologies .
In addition, rare diseases have gained more attention from pharma companies due to significantly less time needed in terms of patient testing, government financial incentives, and higher approval rates from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It is healthcare managers and organizations’ duty to leverage, coordinate, and manage emerging technology tools to bolster increased data transparency and patient involvement. This perspective can be impacted by and simultaneously affect other change perspectives such as legislative, social, competitive, and economy is a great way as mentioned before.
Medical technology advances
Information Technology Innovations in computing and big data services are causing transformation in the manner that health data is stored and transferred among patients and providers effortlessly.
Healthcare organizations are embracing technologies and innovations such as EHRs and EMRs, clinical documentation tools, big data, and telemedicine devices in order to improve the process of health information collection and consumption.
Wearable technology, mobile health, and big data analytics are becoming progressively valuable in healthcare delivery systems.
Although these new innovations and technologies will significantly facilitate diagnosis, prevention, and treatment more efficient, they dramatically increase the need for organizations to care about the security of their data .
However, Lyon et al. (2014) suggest that as more patients adopt new information technologies, the importance of data analysis for organizations surpasses the privacy and security concerns.
The cost of healthcare in the United States is undeniably high (approximately 17.6% of the nation’s GDP increasing from 8.9% in 1980.
It is also estimated that one third of that spending is due to waste caused by (as listed by the Institute of Medicine) unnecessary services, administrative waste including unproductive and duplicate documentation, inefficiently delivered services, high prices, fraud, and missed prevention opportunities.
Big data may hold the key to solve some of these issues. Barham (2017) conducts a literature review on how big data can create value for organizations and discusses the challenges hindering its adoption.
Health organizations leverage the power of big data in order to gain competitive advantage in terms of being more cost and time effective and improve their quality and experience of care for their patients.
Barham (2017) recommends companies to acquire experienced data scientist, learn from successes and failures of other organizations, embrace the benefits of data integration and sharing with partners, and finally work closely with software developers to develop more user-friendly applications for patients and professionals.
Like in the public sector of the United States which has started to take action with regard to big data in order to leverage its potential in overcoming various complex challenges. In 2012, for instance, the Obama Administration invested $200 million in the “Big Data Research and Development Initiative.” with goals accelerating the pace of discovery in science and engineering.
In the recent years, the government is bolstering the ease of data release and accessibility, which enables better access to and standardization of public data of patients, clinical trials, and health insurance.
The private sector is also being affected. Hospitals, providers, clinics, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, physicians, nurses, and patients are all impacted by the changes that the use of big data is bringing into the industry.
Meanwhile, traditional pharmaceutical retailers such as CVS Health are developing internal Digital Innovation Labs that are rolling out Apple Watch apps and facilitating the process of filling medications remotely.
All in all, new IT innovations can give health organizations in terms of insight and advantage. However, managers and organizations leveraging the fruits of these new innovations should manage the ethical, security, and privacy risks that come along with them.
The use of data and analytics in patient care opens up new opportunities for boosting care effectiveness and efficiency despite the fact that the full realization of the importance of data-driven insights has been clouded by some barriers.
US health information technology website lists some of these barriers as current data input and output limitations of medical record systems, scarcity of robust business models for inter-operable data exchange across organizations, and wider organizational barriers that require coordinated solutions across stakeholders.