Vision for Health Technology aims to bring healthcare closer to consumers

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Digital Vision: A regular column by Ann-Marie Cavanagh

If we aim to bring healthcare closer to where New Zealanders live, learn, work and play, what factors do we need to consider in deciding how technology can enable consumer-centric care?

The current healthcare system in New Zealand has providers at its centre – patients visit a doctor’s office, a general practice, a clinic, a hospital. While clinicians will always have a vital role to play in the provision of healthcare, our digital health strategy seeks to put consumers at the centre of thinking about how to make our national digital services more accessible.

One of the nine themes of the Vision for Health Technology, ‘Closer to me’, reflects the desire to provide care closer to where people live, learn, work and play. That sounds straightforward, but it is challenging if we are going to do it in a truly customer-focused way.

Putting consumers at the centre of healthcare means actively including and working with the people who use the healthcare system to ensure processes and systems are meeting their needs. We want to use technology to improve the ease with which New Zealanders interact with their healthcare providers.

Reducing isolation and inequity

Consumer-centric care is particularly important for populations who are vulnerable or disadvantaged – making this shift towards accessibility of healthcare can have significant benefits for the elderly, disabled and those in rural and remote areas.

Technological advances have huge potential to remove isolation as people and communities become more connected, and the need to travel to receive a health service or visit a healthcare provider is removed.

Using technology to improve their access to healthcare and services can also help in transitioning to a model of care that involves their family, whānau and others who may be involved in their care and wellbeing – a more holistic way of caring for the person, rather than just treating their condition.

We need to look at industries that have transitioned to a consumer-centric approach and done it well. Supermarkets have moved on from being strictly a place people travel to in order to shop for their groceries. Now, groceries can be purchased without ever needing to step foot in a supermarket: online orders can be delivered to your door, saving time and increasing the convenience and accessibility of the supermarket.

This concept is even more important when we are considering healthcare – if people who are isolated by geography or physical capability derive benefit from having groceries delivered, imagine the benefits that could come if they were able to access health services in their home.

People who were physically incapable of leaving their house, or who did not have easy access to transport or means of travelling to their health care provider, could have their care delivered in their homes. That could be done, for starters, by expanding telehealth services already in place, and by implementing in-home monitoring for those consumers who could use it.

Basing our healthcare system on the consumer experience would go a long way towards addressing inequity that people who are vulnerable or disadvantaged experience and towards achieving more positive healthcare outcomes through collaboration and participation of consumers’ community and support networks.

A fundamental shift

New Zealanders should have an active role in their healthcare, and to fully achieve this we need to provide them with tools to bring their care and services closer to them. We would need clear data and analytics on the various challenges faced by cohorts of New Zealanders in accessing and receiving care.

To achieve personalised care models, we would need to target certain groups to ensure their needs were being met. Further, we would need to build capability in understanding design thinking and the different ways of providing services. That would be a fundamental shift from where we are today.

Looking to other jurisdictions can also provide ideas on what works – the Mercy virtual care clinic in the United States is one example of being able to service patients in their own homes through telehealth teams providing patient-centred care around the clock without reducing the quality of care provided.

If we were to address our workforce capability and commission services to do something similar in New Zealand, such an idea could provide scalability across the country. It would mean that we may need to be deliberate about how and where we place our resources. We want health services to be invested in in a way that doesn’t create inequity for those who use them, and for New Zealanders to have confidence they can access the best value care and technology.

In the future, patients could visit healthcare providers only when necessary for the treatment required, or when they choose to, or when it suits them. Providing options for consultation and care provides a more satisfactory experience for those who the system is ultimately designed to serve, the patient.

Read more about the Vision for Health Technology ‘Closer to me’ theme.

Ann-Marie Cavanagh is the Ministry of Health’s chief technology and digital services officer.

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