New technology and digitalisation are changing healthcare. Digital health has quickly become an opportunity to face the raising challenges in health sector, such as the epidemic of non-communicable and chronic diseases, the growing demand of ageing populations and the dramatically rising costs of healthcare. At the latest GSMA Europe Mobile Meetings Series entitled “Digital Health: lots of potential, limited progress” (27 March 2018) participants explored the potential of digitising healthcare and the current barriers to introducing mobile technologies in the healthcare sector in Europe.
Innovations in data gathering and digital communications equip healthcare professionals and patients with new tools. More than five billion people worldwide now have a mobile phone which can provide easy access to information and help patients to manage their own health and improve their quality of life by reducing the chance of complications. But despite the potential gains, the digital revolution in this sector is moving slowly. Prescriptions often are not digital, wearable health solutions have limited popularity and healthcare professionals continue to work with ageing IT systems that cannot exchange information effectively.
Hence, what are the main barriers for a digital revolution in Europe’s health care sector? Participants started by discussing the challenge of trust in the up take of mobile healthcare and in the use of data. The discussion around trust brought the attention to the fine line between privacy and security and to what extent cybersecurity might represent a real concern both for providers and users. Many attendees stressed the importance of interaction between doctors and patients and how this communication could evolve in the eHealth era. Exchanges between patients and providers will increasingly be mediated by electronic devices; therefore, it is essential that clinicians, industry, policymakers improve their understanding of this trend, so everyone can fully benefit of ICT evolutions without harming the vital doctor/patient interaction.
The debate also focused on reimbursement schemes and to what extent they may represent a challenge to scale up mobile technologies in the healthcare sector. The different reimbursement models in place across EU could result in slowing down the uptake of digital health and contributing to a “two speed” delivery of healthcare. As pointed out by some participants, more profitable sectors (e.g. chronic diseases, diabetes, obesity) cover a big share of the market of digital health while many areas remain under-covered.
Despite the intrinsic national realm of health, eHealth stands high on the EU agenda. This is also thanks to the contribution of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Providing European citizens with a satisfying access to cross-border healthcare remains a key challenge for the EU instructions which will be addressed in the upcoming Communication on digital transformation of health and care. The Commission’s document will focus on three pillars: (1) to give citizens better access to their health data (2) to connect and share health data for research, faster diagnosis and better health outcome and (3) to use of digital services for citizen empowerment and patient-centred care. The aim is to open up digital opportunities for citizens and healthcare providers.
The major takeaway of the discussion was the importance of making healthcare systems and infrastructures safe and interoperable to maximise the benefits of eHealth. The latter would be accomplished by fostering users’ trust and minimizing risk to security. A full empowerment of patients can only start from these conditions.
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