Digital platforms for enabling better health outcomes

FEATURE - Industry Innovation Article – Spark Health

One of the biggest and most ubiquitous platforms that we have adopted in recent history to improve health outcomes and business efficiencies may not naturally spring to mind.

The fax was introduced as a standard way of business communication in the 1980s and since this time it has permeated through every part of the health system to speed up and improve a range of health-related processes. Its legacy is such that it is still used today, although with a far richer range of digital services available today, we can safely assume the eventual demise of this industry changing technology. 

Fax as a Platform
What made the fax machine the standard for business communications for so long? Although the fax as a technology has been around for well over a century the key to it becoming a successful platform relied on:

Standardisation – The G3 fax system was approved as an international IEEE standard in 1980 and accepted by 160 counties.
Platform Network Effects – The fax system relied on each party to own a fax to enable business communications. If you did not own a fax, your business would likely suffer. The more end users that owned a fax, the more likely other organisations would buy faxes. The platform provided both end user benefits, from better communications, and benefits to the fax suppliers who would compete on new product innovations for the large customer demand.

The fax on its own would have limited impact, but as a platform it changed the business world. 

Digital Health Platforms – The Next Generation
The previous generation of platforms involved in healthcare certainly moved the field forward. However, it suffered from its analogue roots, with the ability to transfer information in graphic format, and the requirement for health organisations to treat each document received like a paper file. 

The next generation of digital-native platforms for health must enable the next level of digital transformation. A digital health platform must support:

• Multi-sourced data with a focus on data for life - Ever increasing volumes of data within health, both from clinical environments, but extending to patient/consumer entered data, biomedical devices/sensors, biotech data and social determinants of health.   
• Ubiquitous connectivity – consumers, devices and organisations all rely on the ability to connect from anywhere and from any device, within the context of their interaction. 
• Smarter analytics and AI – With more data being made available across a range of inputs; IoT/Internet of Bodies, biosensors, electronic health records and self-entered data, the greater the need for the assistance of AI and data analytics to analyse, identify trends and to formulate clinical and ethically assessed recommendations.

Spark Health is focussed on enabling our customers to embark on their digital transformation journey to “Help all New Zealanders live healthier lives through the power of technology.” We bring together our portfolio of services, Connect, Digital and Transformation to power the next generation of digital health platform for NZ. 

Like the humble fax, these platforms will be at the forefront of the next revolution in health and wellness. This revolution will support digital transformation and digital disruption of the health and wellness industry as we see it today.

Author: Jason Perry – Product Director, Spark Health

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