Digital Nation Australia ’s Post

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With the generative AI boom hitting all industries, the health care system has been working through various digital transformations including fast tracking decisions, automating once manual processes, leaving the question whether there is such a thing as too much digital in the healthcare space. Ryan close, chief information officer at the Royal Flying Doctor Service, tells Digital Nation it's using technology to boost patient care, education and its administration processes. We're ultimately they were in a very human facing industry. The importance of the clinician is just not a clerical and just not adequate exercise. It's a health and well-being and a very human empathetic. Exercise as well. So where we using digital is really to improve the administration where we're using digital sometimes is when we have one clinician to many patients, how do we elevate digital, whether it's using AI or whatever to provide that assisted extra pair of digital hands we talked to in decision making and all that through there and and maintain that. And I think that's where digital will play out, however digital innovation. Can't replace the human approach to healthcare, according to close. As part of the young patient healing process, I would attest that that any form of digital or any form of AI in healthcare will not take away from that relationship or that human connection that a clinician and a patient or their patients family will have. Digital has highlighted the importance of securing patient data, says close. I think the only negative thing we've seen so far in digital. This may be the notion of where IT meets Commission and this has been a challenge in the industry and IT traditional person will think of the the patient as an end user whereas the clinician thinks of the patients, the patient. So one of the things we we didn't do well we learned from, but it allowed all that we learned is that we are starting to understand that the importance of our security around our data. And our systems compared to around the patient are needs to our or has already evolved a little bit where we're not as strict as we were once were. And that's what didn't work well initially for us in that area. And it's been a learning too. It's not something we're very comfortable with relinquishing too much security around the areas, but sometimes for the continuity of care and that's what we need to do. Exciting emerging technology in the healthcare space includes boosting education, he says. We've got fantastic skilled and experienced. Missions out there, but it takes a lot of trend there to keep up with that. So we use that data. The other areas I think would be a more immediate right now is diagnosing in the field imagery, taking images of broken limbs or like I said before, ultrasounds or we're also working on looking at identifying the type of stroke by using helmets on their head to process the brain patterns to work out how to treat stroke immediately. Because there's obviously 2 forms. You can treat one of the wrong way, you can cause a problem. And do that more immediate as well. So anything where the clinicians get more intelligent than the field up front is where I think healthcare for us or gift ultimately. close says there's a responsibility on patient data. I feel as CIO's, we have a responsibility to continue to lead that gene on and taking advantage of any emerging tech take advantage of the data we've done if we transition stuff to digital and continue to focus on what that. Actually made for the patient, what it means for the clinician and what it means for the communities we serve. Following with similar sentiments to close, Tanya Forster, psychologist and director of Macquarie Health Collective, says there is a risk of becoming too reliant on digital. However, she added the evolution of digital platforms in regional Australia has proved very powerful. Prior to the strength of the telehealth system that we now have, I had patients who would drive 4 hours to access the confrontation. Math now I might have felt that I had value that I could add to the consumers, but at the same time even I can acknowledge that driving four hours each way for a 15 minute consultation is a bit ridiculous. Telehealth has really changed the games or regional Australia. We have to remember that many of these people do not have access to primary care close to where they reside and particularly for farming communities, the impact of that is really considerable. When we think about time black draft these are farmers that cannot leave the land to be able to. Her and access the health care that they really require. They're having some of these digital platforms and telehealth methods available has been really, really powerful for them. I firmly believe that there's a very human component to the service delivery that we do. As a psychologist, of course, I'm going to say that to you, but I believe that in the delivery of our healthcare, we need to make sure that we continue to provide face to face solutions alongside our telehealth and digital platform. So that we maintain the drinks that we provide through face to face services and we top that up and complement it through the digital services that we now have available to it. Forster says these platforms are here to stay in 2024. I think we do have to accept and embrace that digital solutions will be a part of our future and I think that we have great potential to be able to think creatively but carefully about how we can use technology to strengthen our healthcare delivery. A lot of what we do as you say is a little bit clunky. A lot of what we do is quite manual and flow very if we can think about how we can rely on technology to strengthen some of our processes, then I think that could actually really improve our systems in our healthcare delivery. And I I also believe that there is a human component to what we do and that that cannot be overlooked. And so yes, this becomes a component trying from the pre-existing systems we have, but it's not something that I think we can rely on entirely on its own. I think we're aware that in regional communities we have very complex mental health presentation. We're aware of the statistic in farming communities around mental health, and we also know that humans are social beings, free and wired for connection. And I think I would question how comfortable people would be truly accessing their mental healthcare purely via a digital platform. Again, I think it has a role to play and it can be part of her solution, but I think that's a very human. Element to reaching out and trying to seek that that form of support that I think we begin to lose the more and more that we introduced digital platform, Foster explains. One risk is how medications are prescribed when we act this multiple different doctors when we act this online platform that are readily able to provide those script quick and easy without having the same access to your healthcare or your other prescribing record, then I think we start to get into quite murky waters where. Unfortunately, we could have. We could have problems related to how those medications are dispensed. Mike Jones, managing vice president within the healthcare provider team at Gartner, says to ensure healthcare technology is embedded well, clinicians must be part of the journey. I think the technologies that we see today in the industry that are helping clinicians rather than kind of hindering them in by giving them too much information and those technologies that sit generally above or around the core systems of. Record what we would call the systems of innovation. Into in technology, and I'm talking about things like clinical decision support tools that will act on information that's in those core systems and, and give the clinician a view of the patient with some advice or guidance on perhaps what they might need to do next. So clinical decision support is actually actively helping clinicians get to a decision, not necessarily taking away their autonomy or authority, but just helping them get to that decision point quicker by sifting through. All the data that's there. So those technologies are already there. And I think what we're seeing in the last, say, the last 12 months with artificial intelligence is that there are generative, generative AI in particular is that added ability now to synthesize a lot of knowledge that's out there, medical knowledge, and bring that to the fore. And to help clinicians actually then carry out their, you know, their workflows by providing them with summaries of the record. Bringing clinicians on the tech journey in the right way is key, says Jones. The collisions that I've spoken to over the years. Are often initially. Like skeptical maybe about the technology, They might see the technology as something that is. With the first of all, they first they need to understand what that technology is and what it, what it is capable of doing and, and what is the value proposition say of, of that piece of technology. So if there is an algorithmic based clinical decision support tool for, for for say triaging patients or, or a diagnostic tool, they really need to understand what it's there to do and what it's not there to do. And once you've kind of once people have been educated and understand the possibility of it, they then have to then. Become familiar with it, they have to understand how to use it well and get to a point where they could see the value of it in how they worked. And once you've got those two things, you know, the familiarity with the technology combined with a belief that that technology and understanding of how it can work for them, then you're in the right environment where you can introduce it and start to have them use it. Jones says today cost is one of the big challenges for healthcare systems face. We've seen, you know, we've obviously inflation has been high in the last couple of years. Those pandemic health systems have been trying to get back to some kind of normality and deal with things like backlog of care. So I think health systems now are really, really kind of trying to catch up not just with the technology, but also with with just their clinical activity and the demand on the system. And at the same time, you've got clinicians that come out of the pandemic feeling quite, you know, burnt out by it. So we really are in a time where healthcare needs technology to kind of help us get back to where we need to. Now when I say help, you know, it's actually got to be done in that right way. So I think we've got a lot of opportunities ahead of us in the next two or three years with particularly with AI. But again, we've got to make sure that we do that in a meaningful and purposeful way, working with clinicians, you know, hand in hand with the clinical teams rather than, you know, just implement projects that we think are going to make a difference. That was Ryan close from the RFDS 10 year Forster from Macquarie Health and Mike Jones from Gartner for Digital Nation. I'm Kate Webber for more insights, be sure to subscribe to digitalnation.com dot AU and follow us on LinkedIn.