How health care has changed in the last decade in Australia, and the future direction

The emerging digital health system and how patient expectations have changed and how Australia is moving towards more patient-centric care

Here Is A Fact:

We are reminded of the increasingly ageing population and that Australians are increasingly living with chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancers, respiratory diseases and mental illness. We know that there are significant waste and duplication within our system, and we know that 2–3% of hospital admissions are potentially preventable, with significant numbers due to medication misadventure.

To complicate and frustrate matters further, we have complex funding systems that support the various silos that make up our health system.

In the past few years, governments have realised that the only way forward is to make the health system more patient-centric. Some of those initiatives are now beginning to mature, and it is possible that we are seeing a glimpse of what future medicine might look like.

Technological Advancement

In this modern age ruled by tech, healthcare is just poised for disruption as any other industry. Technology is changing the way people are being managed and treated.

For example, patients can receive video consultations for minor ailments, access patient portals, review medication and allergies; control their own appointments and more. This breaks down the barrier of location, making healthcare more readily accessible to those who are unable to travel or those in remote areas with limited care. The potential is endless.

New technological advancements of big data and Artificial Intelligence to the emergence of robotic surgeons are impacting the industry. The trial of personalised medication is another, but all these are still far from being in the reach of the public.

The Challenge

However, one of Australia's challenges is that we don't have a very integrated system despite the fact that we do have a good quality of life and expectancy; what we have is insurers, we have primary health care providers and we have hospitals but they aren't end to end offers.

Government Initiatives

My Health Record is one of the Australian Government's digital health priorities to overcome this. The online platform stores a person's health information, including their Medicare claims history, hospital discharge information, diagnostic imaging reports, and details of allergies and medications. Hence, authorised health care providers can then access these details securely at any time.

This allows us to bring forward the benefits of e-health, including reduced duplication of tests, better coordination of care for people with chronic and complex conditions, less medication misadventure, and better-informed treatment decisions through improved sharing of information.

Focusing on the digital health system allows everyone in the healthcare sector to move towards more patient-centric care helping to achieve better outcomes even when there are many physicians or doctors involved. Imagine things like diabetes, people with chronic disease, people that have to be treated multiple times by multiple people and nurses.

As a doctor, we move into a system whereby we are being assisted by computerisation

in the past twenty years. As doctors, we try progressively to keep patients health summary up to date as new information arrives. This includes current medication, allergies, key results and reports. All these information form the basis of any care plan, keeping both patients and healthcare providers safe.

How often has a patient come into a seeking a consultation and when asked details about their medication or history that they are unable to recall the name of the problem they had or the medication they took. I'm sure most of you will see this as a very familiar scenario.

Picture yourself in an emergency situation; have you ever thought about where would one turn to get a comprehensive database of the patient? Having digital health records like MyHR allows the emergency physician access to all the right information facilitating his emergency care. Physicians do not need to be "flying blind" when patients come in having complex cases that need immediate treatment.

Expectations

And perhaps one of the most demanding changes of all is the changing consumer's expectation. Patients are more informed, which managing expectations an increasingly important part of the healthcare process. This is as much as about managing the expectations of the patient's carer as much as it is about managing the expectations of the patients.

Today, there is an expectation that we will be cured, For example, Hepatitis C couldn't be cured two years ago, and now it can be cured. People today demand for 24/7 accessibility to services when they want it and how they want it. The fact is that patients of today want to be a partner; they want to be informed and make decisions with regards to their health care.

What we find with that is that patient outcomes are better. The fact of the matter is that a more engaged patient is more active in his or her own care and the patient's satisfaction is much better.

Patients Are Important Members of the Healthcare Team

What patients can do to drive the changes in healthcare would be to get more involved in the design and redesign of health care services. Provide inputs so we can assume what patients want and need. Patients' involvement need not be complex. There are ranges of mechanisms that can be utilised to involve patients in all parts of their health care, such as working groups, designing facilities, and serving on advisory committees.

Start With Yourself

Educate yourself about your condition. As a patient, participate in the decisions about your health care. You can start by working with your doctor and other healthcare professionals, and participate in all decisions about your treatment.

Ask your doctor to give you brochures or other patient-friendly literature so you can learn about your diagnosis, medical tests, and treatment. Make sure you understand everything. If you don't understand something, keep asking. No question is a silly question.

The Future Is There But Change Is Hard

The overarching challenge lies in the nature of health systems. Healthcare is a complex adaptive system, meaning that the system's performance and behaviour change over time and cannot be completely understood by simply knowing about the individual components. No other system is more complex: not banking, education, manufacturing, or the military.

We need to turn healthcare into a learning system, with participants attuned to systems features and with strong feedback loops to try to build momentum for change to build a better more patient-centric system.

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