The digital transformation of health
On May 16, the biggest event that TRAK has held to date took place. In it we discuss, together with experts from different areas of health, what is the impact of digital transformation on health at a global and national level.
Our four experts, renowned figures in the industry, discussed how the advent of digital health is changing the way healthcare professionals have to work and the way patients seek the healthcare they need.
But is this an upward trend? What has been the uptick in digitization in the pandemic? Do health professionals continue to use digital solutions?
In fact, it could be mistakenly thought that this issue is as recent as the pandemic, but our speakers made it clear that not only have they been working for years to introduce new technologies in health, but there are many organizations and research groups that have fought, and they fight, for the “technification” of health.
From TRAK, as champions of the development of the medical discipline, we could not miss the opportunity to unite such an important group of speakers as the one that attended our last event. Among them we find:
- Jaime del Barrio, president of the Digital Health Association (ASD) and Senior Advisor – Healthcare and Life Sciences at EY.
- Antonio Ibarra, Omnichannel Customer & Innovation Lead Iberia at Grünenthal.
- Carmen Jódar, technical adviser to the Department of Health and Families of the Junta de Andalucía.
- Raúl Ferrer-Peña, CEO of Smart Dyspnea, disseminator and professor of physiotherapy at the La Salle university center.
What is the current panorama of the Digital Transformation of Spanish healthcare?
Most of the speakers concluded that they were certainly pessimistic about this question. But not because they see implementation as something impossible, but as something difficult to introduce into the model to which we are accustomed. “Currently it is a loss of opportunity for the health professional, who does not consider digital health as an ally,” said Jaime del Barrio.
Before the pandemic, they pointed out, the digitization rate was 30% and with COVID-19, it improved. But now it’s going backwards. It is a fairly simple example of how the professional undoubtedly clings to the traditional form of health care. “The fundamental barrier is the professionals,” said Carmen Jódar. “But the sustainability of the system involves changing the work model.”
On the other hand, Antonio Ibarra indicated that “never before had he found such an alignment of wills in favor of the implementation of a digital model in health”.
Do professionals really know what digital health is?
In other sectors, the implementation of a digital model was not as clear a paradigm as it is for the health sector, where we found “early adopters” a few years ago. But now, as Raúl Ferrer said, believers and non-believers literally exist: “within the believers we find those who do not understand it and think that it is similar to uploading TikToks on guard duty or those who really know it but have no tools to put it into practice”
The new changes imply effort and difficulty, but they are necessary. Why do we know? Something that we can reduce in 5 aspects:
- The deliberate increase in the average age and aging of the population, which is accompanied by chronic diseases and other comorbidities.
- Current health care is overwhelmed and between 20 and 40% of the processes carried out in health care are inefficient.
- 41 billion devices of the so-called “internet of things” that have changed the way of life of the population.
- 50% of patients think that their smartphone will be the interface of their health care.
- In the last 5 years, more than 1,500 scientific papers have been published indicating that efficiency increases when the maturity in digital health is high. As a counterpart, 80% of the tasks that are carried out could be automated.
FOR MORE INFORMATION WE INVITE YOU TO SEE THE COMPLETE EVENT: