- Q Ever heard your specialist request his assistant send another practitioner’s assistant, a request for a scan/file/report?
- Q Possibly sat through an expensive consultation, but one of your files/scans/reports hasn’t turned up in time?
- Q Have you sat through (and paid for) a consultation that continued despite the fact that a file/scan/report has gone AWOL?
If nothing else, digital health care will solve these problems for us, but yes, there is more to it. In this post we’ll provide a brief introduction to the digital-health-age, using plain speak.
DIY Digital Healthcare Technologies
Maybe the local doctor doesn’t update the local hospital with his notes, and maybe the cardio specialist is currently on holiday, so your notes are inaccessible.
We want our data when we need it, it could be an emergency for heaven’s sake, so the best person to control your unique electronic health data is you! Our unique electronic health data belongs in safe hands, our hands.
Technology-Enabled Patient Empowerment Takes Off
In the previous year, there have been more developments in the DIY digital health space than at any time in history, largely due to lock-down laws limiting our access to traditional health services.
Technology-enabled patient empowerment, AKA ‘ self-service healthcare’, is now used daily to monitor key health metrics including;
- step-count
- our mood
- heart rate
- temperature
- blood pressure
- diabetes management
- checking and tracking hormones
That’s not even the start with hearing and eyesight data one day also forming part of the digital you residing in the virtual cloud, 2-factor protected of course. All this sounds great, but it can only be great with great understanding.
And yes, we’re still going to need our Doctor, as well as strict health-data management (privacy) rules.
Rules and More Rules in the Digital Health Age
New rules with regard to healthcare data privacy and in particular ‘data sharing’ will mean that one day all your applications and stored electronic data can be consolidated into a virtual version of you.
The other you is accessible in an instant by anyone you delegate that authority to, be it your family, your practitioner, your lawyer, who knows! Any test result data collected by a user, e.g. (sticking with our example) tracking hormones for fertility, disease management, or real-time drug dosage adjustment, can be accessed by the treating team or specialist, immediately.
So consider beginning preparations for Digital You’s arrival, which, here in Australia, will likely be associated with your My Health Record. Checking all the details there is a good place to start.
Over time, the My Health Record will evolve into a more powerful healthcare data exchange system, with another name, more than likely unrecognizable from its current form.
Adapting to this change is a choice we all have but who knows, is it the case that not adapting to this change could result in the arrival of a faulty Digital You?
Thanks for reading, Stay Fit & Well!
| Guy Saywell |
| GM | TestoChecker® |
| Co-Director Viamed Australia Pty LTD (2010 – present) |
