Australia’s healthcare industry is facing a challenging and changing landscape. Our ageing population is putting increased pressure on healthcare providers in terms of palliative and end-of-life care, as well as aged care. In addition, the healthcare industry is facing significant and increasing challenges in supporting the greater Australian population including:
- cost of operational efficiency
- expectations for healthcare experience and outcomes
- levels of compliance with regulations on the collection and storage of patient data
- focus on safety and hygiene regulations.
As pressure continues to mount on frontline health workers to support Australians needing medical care, healthcare providers and facilitators are turning to digital solutions and strategies to provide more value-based healthcare to patients.
What is value-based healthcare?
Value-based healthcare is an approach to delivering patient services that focuses on outcomes rather than processes. It’s designed to deliver outcomes that matter to patients and the community. This approach should lead to clinicians focusing on what matters to each individual they’re treating, service providers striving to deliver services in a way that optimises outcomes, and technology vendors creating the systems and platforms that support value-based healthcare.
Delivering value-based healthcare depends on being able to measure outcomes and results. This creates a learning opportunity for medical professionals to use the trends and patterns identified in patient data to determine how best to deliver care in the future.
Delivering value via remote healthcare
Investing in cloud-based solutions is one of the primary digital strategies that healthcare providers are exploring to promote better patient care and experience, while simultaneously improving efficiencies and the experience of frontline healthcare workers.
The delivery of telehealth services through continued investment in cloud-based digital solutions in particular, has benefited patients. While rudimentary telehealth services facilitate remote medical care, modern, cloud-based telehealth services better deliver medical care and support that more closely mimics the in-person experience. This is incredibly beneficial for healthcare workers that service remote patients and regional locations across Australia, as it empowers them to provide much-needed medical care as and when patients require it. This significantly reduces the travel time needed for people to attend medical appointments and can alleviate concerns for workers in rural areas that can’t afford large amounts of time away from work.
In addition, this leads to a better access to leading specialists for patients regardless of geographical location. This can be exceptionally useful for ageing citizens who may not be able to regularly leave their homes or care facilities for specialist medical care.
Adding greater value through digital technologies
In addition to investing in cloud-based services like modern telehealth solutions, healthcare providers are increasingly investing in other digital solutions to help streamline and improve the patient and healthcare work experience.
Digital solutions such as online booking apps and electronic medical record (EMR) services let people book medical appointments whenever they need them, without needing to rely on business hours to call and schedule appointments with preferred practitioners. Similarly, EMR data, such as the Australian government’s My Health Record, let patients and practitioners keep a transparent and comprehensive medical record on file that can easily be shared with and added to by specialists and other medical practitioners as required. This only works however, if patients trust the organisation’s ability to keep their data safe and secure.
At healthcare facilities themselves, the investment in digital solutions such as parking and hospital map apps and smart rooms for patients, are enhancing the patient experience by helping healthcare facilities be more personalised for patient needs.
Investing in digital solutions can go a long way towards improving the experience of patients and frontline healthcare workers, delivering on the promise of value-based healthcare. Logicalis works with healthcare providers to find the most efficient tools and services to leverage and help deliver digital solutions that best meet patient needs and business requirements for healthcare facilities.
For more information about how you can transition to telehealth and digital healthcare solutions, to deliver a value-based healthcare approach, contact the Logicalis team today.