Driving Digital Innovation and Overcoming Challenges in Healthcare

Antoni Chan is the Clinical Lead in Rheumatology at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust and a Consultant Rheumatologist and Physician. After earning his medical degree, his medical career began with general internal medicine and rheumatology specialist training. He further advanced his expertise through a postgraduate fellowship and a PhD in immunology, focusing on rheumatic diseases. In addition to his clinical leadership, he is actively involved in academia as a Professor at the University of Reading, contributing to medical education, research, and the advancement of rheumatology care.

Through this article, Chan highlights the transformative impact of digital healthcare technologies, including personalised medicine, remote monitoring, AI-driven diagnostics, and data analytics.

Trends and Technological Advancements Shaping Healthcare

There has been a great need and traction to change how we deliver care using digital healthcare technologies. The areas of significant advancement are personalised medicine, remote monitoring, digital prediction of diagnosis and outcome, and data analytics with machine learning and artificial intelligence. These advances will assist healthcare professionals in advancing the care of patients in their respective fields. In rheumatology, for example, digital remote monitoring is a big area as it is a chronic, long-term condition. We want to ensure that our patients can be monitored safely at home and seen in the right clinic at the right time, improving their care and experience.

Challenges in Healthcare Over the Next Decade

Over the next decade, the biggest challenge in the healthcare landscape will be implementing digital care technologies into the clinical workflow. The concept-to-completion (C2C) process will require co-design and co-working between healthcare professionals, patients, regulators and the industry. The safety and quality standards of digital technologies will be a key focus when implementing such resources. C2C will also include adherence and uptake of both healthcare professionals and patients in the long term. There will also be a need for appropriate reimbursements for the sustainability of such systems.

Digital Transformation at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust

The electronic patient record has been the cornerstone of the digital journey at the hospital. This is the foundation for other upstream and downstream digital healthcare technologies. The 3I’s remain important in the use and uptake of such digital healthcare technologies. The 3I’s are integration, interoperability and interaction.

Advice for Adopting Emerging Healthcare Technologies

To begin, one must start. This could be a small pilot project looking at the use of digital healthcare technology in an area of work. This needs to be measured to show its effectiveness. There are a lot of case studies and best practice examples that one can refer to. For example, the NHS England Digital Playbook is in the UK. This would avoid needing to reinvent the wheel and be aware of potential pitfalls. Collaborating and discussing with other colleagues through digital networks is a very effective way to adopt emerging healthcare technologies.