3 predictions for Digital Health

Zesty was founded in July 2012, since then we have been passionate about improving access to healthcare, automating tasks, saving patients time and hospitals money. James Balmain my co-founder, CEO and I have 40+ years combined experience of digital transformation between us within 8 Industries – Healthcare, Retail, Travel, Financial Services, Advertising, Dating, Social Networking and Telecoms.

Our 5 year journey to digitally transform healthcare in the UK has seen us evolve from a consumer application to enterprise platform delivering web based solutions and mobile apps for patients in both public and private healthcare markets.

Based on my 5 years experience to date, I believe the future of Digital Health will be the many things, however three predictions that spring to mind are ..

1) the combination of hardware enabling software

2) emotional intelligence overlaying artificial intelligence

3) patient self-service apps replacing traditional processes.

Hardware is currently used in healthcare in the form of wearable tech and remote monitoring products. Small device are recording, storing and transmitting data from a patient to a range of digital databases. Hardware will enable software in the future by providing a new type of data, unstructured data. Healthcare professionals will have access to reams of new data sets from completely new sources, potentially asynchronously and in real time.

Technology will enable better care to be delivered by humans not by machines. Emotional intelligence combined with artificial intelligence has the potential to radically improve both the quality and accuracy of care delivered by healthcare organisations.

Emotional intelligence will be needed by nurses, clinicians, doctors and surgeons to reassure patients in the future because medical information will be easier to collect and read. Medically trained staff will need to put patients who have been using Dr Google, Dr Apple Kit and other new technologies at ease in the future by answering questions, explaining risks and educating them on research available.

Health Technology in the future will also focus around patient’s self serving as an alternative to traditional processes like telephone based triage, paper questionnaires and face to face consultations. Mobile apps, patient portals, telehealth, telemedicine – all will play an important part in the patient journey of the future, 24/7 remote access to healthcare, anytime and anywhere.