The movement towards personalized medical devices in healthcare has given rise to the “patient-consumer.” Healthcare providers are now incorporating wireless devices into healthcare settings and using them to engage patients. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, Biotricity CEO & Founder, discusses how medical technology should be interoperable, iterative, and capable of providing actionable feedback to facilitate patient-consumer adoption.
Interoperability
Modern technology, such as next generation medical devices, should integrate seamlessly into a physician’s workflow. Waqaas affirms that devices “should be customizable, push specified data into the physician’s workflow, and optimize a physician’s time by demanding no effort on their part.” The devices must be easy to use because physicians don’t have the time to teach patients how to use new devices, or perform complex data analysis, or data entry.
Iterative
Personalized medical devices coupled with mobile health software should be iterative by sustaining patient engagement and stimulating use. This is best achieved with technology that offers customizability, such as offering patients the ability to keep a food diary or tracking their glucose levels from week to week based on their adherence to treatment plans. Research has shown that incorporating gamification into healthcare improves patient engagement.
Feedback
Medical technology that could provide actionable feedback for patients and physicians is key to patient-consumer technology adoption. Waqaas explains, “If the patient can hear, see, feel, or measure personal changes while the technology gives feedback, then the patient can corroborate that the technology is collecting the correct data.” A 2010 study on patients using an electronic fetal monitor showed that when patients could both feel their own contractions and see the device transmitting the data, they began trusting the technology more.
Modern technology should also improve bi-directional communications between patients and physicians. When physicians adopt technology, they help enforce a patient’s trust that the technology is providing value. Moreover, improved patient engagement with the technology provides a constant flow of data between patients and physicians, which might in turn inform more personalized care.
Read the entire article here. Waqaas’ article is available on Flarrio. Flarrio is a peer-to-peer learning platform powered by thought leaders from the world’s top universities and technology organizations.
