I see a future where healthcare will be in people’s mind as well as on their wrists, in their wedding rings and on their pens! It will be different, not only because it will be everywhere, but also because it will be in an individual’s own hands.

As we move away from the concept of ‘sick care’ to the concept of  ‘health care’,[1] the two basic needs have emerged.  First, the ability to connect an individual with a healthcare system [2]. Second, the ability of an individual to take care of his/her health [3].

This means that we have to think of healthcare as being away from centralized institutions like hospitals or health centers to people’s homes and their minds and form new patient-centered networks. We also need to redefine healthcare professionals as people who monitor and advice people on health in addition to curing disease. This de-institutionalization of healthcare and an increase in its ambit will mean the evolution of new ideas for monitoring, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of disease [4].

Many of my colleagues in India think of this idea as prevention centric, however, new concepts and programs such as parkinson.net have demonstrated that taking healthcare out of the infirmaries into patient’s own home is as much about disease treatment as about prevention. In fact, the best thing about ubiquitous and networked healthcare is that it makes a whole continuum about health, prevention, disease and cure very much patient-centered while making the pitfalls verifiable [5].  This ensures improved care in the entire spectrum of health. Further, it also takes us closer to holistic health by considering and addressing various phases of health care.

However, there are various barriers and challenges to this type of healthcare. A lot has been said about the economic benefits of this type of healthcare. However, in my opinion, the economic benefits even though huge and long-lasting will not be immediate. In fact, by increasing the spectrum of care we might as well end up increasing the total cost of healthcare in the beginning. There will be some obvious sideways advantages like an improvement of growth in healthcare sector and jobs, but the real economic benefits due to reduced disease burden and per-capita expenditure on disease treatment will take some time to show. Another challenge will be about making this ubiquitous care really ubiquitous. Use of technology is dependent on financial status, literacy, and availability of resources, therefore, that there will be disparities based on these factors!  This means that it will make health care for all an even more far-fetched dream.  There are other challenges like ethical challenges and data confidentiality etc. which have to be addressed.

Therefore, even though we need to move forward towards this new phase of healthcare; our future researches should not only concentrate on making new ways to provide this new healthcare but, also on how this healthcare could be more beneficial, foolproof and universal.

References:

1. Fani Marvasti F, Stafford RS. From sick care to health care–reengineering prevention into the U.S. system. N Engl J Med. 2012 Sep 6;367(10):889-91. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1206230. PubMed PMID: 22931257; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4339086.
2. Tomines A, Readhead H, Readhead A, Teutsch S. Applications of electronic health information in public health: uses, opportunities & barriers. EGEMS (Wash DC). 2013;1(2):1019. Published 2013 Oct 28. doi:10.13063/2327-9214.1019
3. Pomey MP, Ghadiri DP, Karazivan P, Fernandez N, Clavel N. Patients as partners: a qualitative study of patients’ engagement in their health care. PLoS One. 2015;10(4):e0122499. Published 2015 Apr 9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122499
4. Technology and the future of healthcare. J Public Health Res. 2013;2(3):e28. Published 2013 Dec 1. doi:10.4081/jphr.2013.e28

5.      Thielst CB. Social media: ubiquitous community and patient engagement. Front Health Serv Manage. 2011 Winter;28(2):3-14. PubMed PMID: 22256506.