CLICK BELOW TO REDISCOVER HUMANITY
A DECADE+ OF STORYTELLING POWERED BY THE BEST WRITERS ON THE PLANET

The Future Of Healthcare & Hospitals From A People Perspective (Part 3)

Patient Room 2020[2], was an idea, funded by the US Department of Defense, and was developed following a collaboration with over 35 industry partners that began in 2013 in New York. NXT Health Patient Room 2020 is a collaborative design project for a next-generation inpatient care environment. The aim is to improve patient experiences and optimize caregiver performance. The minimalistic design, with curved white panels and aluminum fixtures, looks futuristic, but not only does it look good (if rather sterile,) every aspect of the layout has been designed with functionality in mind. The curved edges are to minimize injuries caused by patients falling, and non-porous solid surfaces and anti-microbial fabrics limit germs that could lead to infection. The ‘Patient Companion’ tablet can be used by patients to call for help, check their medical progress and control environmental factors. It also provides entertainment through computer games. The bathroom is an adaptable design that features a sliding door system which can be reconfigured based on care needs. A direct path of travel between the bed and bathroom is illuminated and lined with grab bars

At the Health Information and Management Systems Society annual meeting in Las Vegas, last year, the intelligent, connected and digital hospital was a common theme in the educational and exhibit hall presentations. But to make that vision a reality, new technologies and greater bandwidth are needed[3].

Phoenix-based Banner Health introduced its telemedicine program 10 years ago, starting with its intensive-care units. Now it is trying to achieve the same outcomes—including 45,000 fewer hospital days, $109 million in cost savings and 1,890 additional survivors—in other areas of the hospital.

Partnering with Philips Healthcare, Banner has upgraded the technology in three of its hospitals to include two-way audio and video equipment in all of its patient rooms. Patients also wear devices that can monitor and transmit information about their health status into their medical records.

For more than 600 patients who are covered by a risk-based contract and have a minimum of five chronic conditions, Banner is using technology to monitor their health around the clock. These patients return home with a number of biosensors, including scales, blood pressure monitors, and pulse oximeters. Nurses can then track that data and intervene when necessary by calling patients or having health coaches make home visits.

But one of the most futuristic developments may be taken from Star Trek[4] – a tiny, high-tech medical kit, the Tricorder represents the epitome of what we envision the future of medicine to look like: A single noninvasive device capable of not only understanding the inner workings of the human body, and also pinpointing and diagnosing the causes of disease. There are already devices that perform some of the functions, but not yet the complete portfolio.

Back to the Future

Earlier, we discussed briefly the idea of hi-tech, hi-touch. And this may be an idea whose time has come in a development that is being explored by such diverse organizations as the University of Southern California, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Johns Hopkins – that of doctors’ house calls. Services such as HEAL, that has been operating in California since 2014, are expanding across the country, providing faster, more convenient and more personalized healthcare. HEAL works with patients’ insurance, or charges a fee up to $99 per visit. Technology helps in the house calls, with portable records and equipment, and as technology improves (the Tricorder!) so will the breadth of the services.

This Big Idea – CHOICE – is not a remarkable one. And it is definitely following social trends. Why not let people choose for themselves the approaches and delivery systems they want to take at a particular time? Why not let this be a really good example of demand-pull taking the lead?

The major inhibitors to this menu approach are, of course, Congress, the Insurance Providers, and the American Medical Associations. These institutions are unlikely to change overnight, even if they could find some benefits in the new approaches. Rather, all the new approaches will be seen as threats. Let us look for a demand-led solution that would benefit all of us as human beings. This is too complicated a subject to discuss here, but perhaps I can sow some seeds.

[1] https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/social-values-one-of-the-best-segmentation-models-part-1/

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2384889/Patient-Room-2020-Designers-unveil-hi-tech-visions-hospital-future.html#ixzz4mMT3119Y

[3] http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160301/NEWS/160309982

[4] http://www.popsci.com/doctor-future-may-be-personal-high-tech-medical-box

Christine MacNulty
Christine MacNultyhttps://applied-futures.com/
CHRISTINE MacNulty has forty years’ experience as a consultant in long-term strategic -planning for concepts as well as organizations, futures studies, foresight, and technology forecasting, technology assessment and related areas, as well as socio-cultural change. For the last twenty years, most of her consultancy has been conducted for the Department of Defense and the Services, NATO ACT, NATO NEC, the British Army’s Force Development & Training Command, and the German BBK. Prior to that her work was in the commercial arena where she had Fortune Global 500 clients. During the last thirty-five years Christine MacNulty has contributed methods and models for understanding social and cultural change through people’s values. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 1989. She is the coauthor of two books: Industrial Applications of Technology Forecasting, Wiley, 1971 and Strategy with Passion – A Leader’s Guide to Exploiting the Future, August 2016. Her paper: “Method for minimizing the negative consequences of nth order effects in strategic communication actions and inactions” was published in NATO Defence Strategic Communications Journal, p 99, Winter 2015. Two monographs “Truth, Perception & Consequences” (2007) and “Transformation: From the Outside In or the Inside Out” (2008) were published by the Army War College. Perceptions, Values & Motivations in Cyberspace appeared in the IO Journal, 3rd Quarter, 2009, and The Value of Values for IO, SC & Intel was published in the August 2010 edition of the IO Journal.

DO YOU HAVE THE "WRITE" STUFF? If you’re ready to share your wisdom of experience, we’re ready to share it with our massive global audience – by giving you the opportunity to become a published Contributor on our award-winning Site with (your own byline). And who knows? – it may be your first step in discovering your “hidden Hemmingway”. LEARN MORE HERE


2 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Christine, Unfortunately, I am up close and personal seeing the lack of understanding of anything beyond allopathic medicine and an intense desire on the part of the intensivist “to be right” rather than see how a patient who is continually exceeding expectations might continue to do so. There is a total lack of understanding and usage of either the Placebo Effect or the Nocebo Effect (which is inadvertently being applied) or the importance of destructive and constructive coherence in quantum physics. I’m not even seeing an understanding of the feedback the doc receives from his own body in terms of energy and emotions which both improve when one is heading in the direction of self-actualization.
    There is a tremendous knowledge gap between what is known and what traditionally trained clinicians know. Most clinicians don’t even know what they don’t know. They don’t recognize the gaps in their knowledge, not because of an incapacity to understand, but because the educational system is designed to convince them they know it all.

TAKE STROLL INSIDE 360° NATION

TIME FOR A "JUST BE." MOMENT?

ENJOY OUR FREE EVENTS

BECAUSE WE'RE BETTER TOGETHER