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Progress through policy: the digital health imperative

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In brief
  • The U.S. Congress should consider embracing policies that advance digital health initiatives such as remote patient monitoring and hospital at home.
  • Without these policies in place, the US health care system will miss opportunities to improve patient care, workforce planning and other key areas.
  • Several global digital health examples highlight how encouraging digital health could help reduce costs and enhance patient outcomes in the US.

As the challenges of health care affordability, staffing and access continue across the US, the rise of technology presents a significant opportunity to unlock more responsive care that better addresses patients’ health and social needs while alleviating provider burden and reducing costs.

The question is, will US policymakers take action to capture this potential?

 

Our work at Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) has shown that the state of digital health in both the US and abroad calls for a more effective health care ecosystem to support the potential of a digitally connected future.

 

Barriers to a digital health future

 

From life expectancy to post-operative complications, maternal mortality, chronic disease management and more, US patients fare worse than their peers in comparable countries. For patients from underserved racial and ethnic groups, these disparities are often more pronounced.


The future of health care is digitally connected.

At EY US, we envision a digital future for the health care system that includes smart hospitals and ecosystems centered around care delivered at the most cost-effective, convenient location, built on a foundation of widely available data, real-time insights and frictionless consumer-focused experiences.

Foundational to this ecosystem is home-based care, enabled by wearables, remote patient monitoring, care navigators and connected care teams that empower patients across geographic locations and demographic backgrounds to remain healthy and in their communities for as long as possible. This white paper explores each of our five challenges and the policies needed to attain the digital health future.

1. Payment infrastructure

Payment infrastructure

2. Digital health investment


3. Interoperability

80% of medical data is unstructured.1

It’s a double-edged sword. It’s nice to be able to have access to all the information about a patient that’s ever been recorded, but it’s also incredibly difficult to pull the information you want in a timely way.

4. Workforce


5. Patient experience

While many patients stand to benefit from the digitally enabled tools that are commonplace in other industries, there is a generational divide that creates a need for more optionality and education that doesn’t currently exist. 


Global digital health examples

Click on the highlighted countries to learn more:
  • Aligning incentives: Argentina’s Plan Nacer for neonatal care
  • Innovation: Singapore’s GenAI Sandbox
  • Promoting interoperability: UAE’s digital health care platform
  • Bolstering the workforce: Australia’s Stronger Rural Health Strategy and HeaDS UPP workforce data and planning tool
  • Patient experience: France’s Mon espace santé (My health space)

How health care policy can shape our digital health future


Summary 

Around the globe, our peer nations have shown the positive effects of embracing digitally enabled tools and patient-centric solutions can have on patient care. In the US, creating a more digital and patient-friendly health care system that enables all clinicians to practice at the top of their license begins with federal policy. Policymakers must focus on making improvements that lift barriers to innovation, reward providers for the quality and value of the care provided and maintain a robust health care workforce that can deliver the digital care of the future.


For more information

Photo of Aloha McBride

Aloha McBride
EY Global Health Leader

Photo of Heather Meade

Heather E. Meade
Principal, Washington Council, Ernst & Young LLP


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