Is health technology separating patients, providers?
While popular health tracking applications and smart watches can screen serious and sometimes deadly problems including atrial fibrillation and sleep apnea, diagnosis and subsequent treatment can only be provided by a physician. The only caveat? Patients do not like going to the doctor.
To mitigate the problem, digital health companies may need to partner with providers by offering services within clinics and hospitals to provide the type of experience patients want.
"All the things done well by digital health—they're simple, fun, visual with great user experience—are still missing from most clinical visits—so it remains pretty unpleasant to be a patient," said Jeffrey Wessler, a cardiology fellow at Columbia University Medical Center and the founder of a digital health company called Heartbeat. "To me, this gap gets closed by bringing the clinical experience up to the same standards as our digital health solutions."
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As a senior news writer for TriMed, Subrata covers cardiology, clinical innovation and healthcare business. She has a master’s degree in communication management and 12 years of experience in journalism and public relations.