Fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, global demand for digital health is expected to grow to a USD$1.5 trillion market by the end of the decade. Aotearoa New Zealand is on the frontline of this growth, with our own digital health market projected to increase over eight percent in the next five years.
Digital is the new frontier for health. It has the potential to help doctors and patients monitor and manage chronic conditions and increase access to health data, giving patients greater control over their own health. The upshot will be efficiency, equity, and better patient outcomes.
In Aotearoa, Te Whatu Ora’s interim health plan singles out ‘greater use of digital services to provide more care in homes and communities’ and ‘support a financially sustainable health system’. Elsewhere we hear from our global experts that the UK and Australia are well on the way to shaping their own wide-ranging digital strategies for the future of healthcare - one that’s more equitable and accessible.
Looking down the line
Three big global trends are driving the digitisation of healthcare. A move to virtual-first care models with smaller hospitals and distributed primary care; the digitisation of clinical and operational workflows; and a global squeeze on healthcare staffing.
These trends raise a host of questions for the future of our hospitals, how they’re built, and the importance of digital presence in the design of physical healthcare space. With healthcare becoming more virtual and distributed, will there be a need for large waiting areas and floor upon floor of rooms? If doctors are treating people remotely instead of in-person, what data and software is needed, and how might this change the check-in process? With less clinical staff, how can digital technology be harnessed to lessen the work burden? Is there an opportunity to reduce the environmental impact of healthcare infrastructure and chart a path to carbon neutrality in a sector with historically high energy usage?
Digital health experts from WSP are working to answer these sorts of questions with some major players in healthcare – including the UK’s National Health Service and state health agencies in Australia. Such questions must also be front and centre of discussions when the prospect of new hospital builds is being entertained; not least because hospitals can take ten years to design and build – an eternity in tech land.
Smart hospitals for smart decision-making
Digital health is usually thought of in the context of ‘smart’ hospitals. These buildings use data and technology to enhance the work that healthcare professionals and hospital management are already doing – to make things more effective, efficient and help solve patient care and workflow challenges.
In a great global WSP example, digital experts from WSP USA have worked with Children's National Hospital in Washington DC to set up a new telehealth command centre - what amounts to an ‘air traffic control tower’ for cardiac intensive unit clinicians. It lets them remotely monitor children’s diagnostics in real-time - from one location. Leeds Teaching Hospital and the NHS Trust’s Hospitals of the Future programme in the UK are other flagship digital health projects in what is a quickly moving space.
Like an iceberg, the most visible part of smart hospital technology (e.g., touchscreens, monitors, and apps) is supported by an unseen infrastructure of sensors, data feeds, software and communications systems. It’s cutting-edge stuff that may soon be coming to a hospital near you!
No one size fits all
A smart hospital is only smart if it addresses the needs of patients, clinicians, guests, facility managers, and administrators. That's why digital healthcare consultants work with a variety of stakeholders to understand their use-cases.
From doctors and nurses to orderlies and administrators, the first thing to do is correctly define the problems they’re facing, then look at whether data and technology can help solve these. What building systems and sensors need to be put into a hospital building, for instance, to create (or respond to) data that will create a successful outcome.
It's important to ask early questions about how healthcare operates today, as well as when the ribbon finally gets cut on the building. Top of mind is what building systems will support current and future healthcare approaches. It’s also important to build flexibly so program and technology needs can be accommodated over the full lifecycle of the asset. With budgets never enough, digital healthcare consultants work with what can be achieved with available budget. They also consider what needs to be put in place to allow future digital solutions to be implemented.
Dunedin’s new hospital, set to fully open in 2028, is an example of where digital plays an important part of successful project outcomes. WSP’s local and global expert digital team is working closely with Te Whatu Ora to enable digital infrastructure and systems to futureproof the facility.
When we talk about ideal patient, clinical or operational outcomes for a hospital, we translate those aspirations into what needs to be done differently in the building. For example, what control systems might be needed, and what data within those systems is generated.
Let’s assume a future state where a hospital has robotic delivery of drugs. But where do the robots go to get recharged? How do they navigate throughout the building? These (and other) questions need to be answered by the building design before a clinical solution of using robots to deliver pharmaceuticals can be applied.
In another example, hospital administrators may want to get faster at turning over a patient room between care. In such a situation, we could leverage data from room occupancy sensors and lighting control systems to get an idea of how efficiently this is (or could be) done.
Mapping the user journey
Understanding the user experience is a big part of designing smarter, more digitally enabled hospitals. From check-in, stay, check-out, and follow-ups, digital tech can help patients every step of the way – but only if it’s usable and has been well thought through. In creating a truly smart hospital, similar user journeys will be created for staff, clinicians, managers, etc.
In situations where care is being delivered more virtually or with less clinical staff, doctors may require specific telemedicine rooms, for example, or even dedicated lower-cost facilities. Nurses may benefit from natural language processing tech in lieu of handwritten patient notes.
Healthcare and technology are becoming inextricably linked. Want proof? Look no further than Microsoft’s acquisition of clinical AI firm Nuance, Oracle’s acquisition of health records firm Cerner, and Amazon’s acquisition of telehealth firm One Medical.
The common thread here is data, which ultimately drives the entire health sector. By having a better understanding of data, medical professionals and administrators can identify areas of risk or improvement. Armed with that information, they can work to increase the quality of the patient experience. It’s important, of course, that processes around the collection, use and storage of clinical are safe and secure.
There’s no hard and fast recipe for digital hospital success, but one thing’s for sure - healthcare is undergoing a digital transformation where data and the interoperability of tech systems are playing an increasingly important role in patient care and the smooth, sustainable running of hospital buildings. And that’s something worth designing for!
