What is Connected Health and why will it change your practice?

Abstract

As a society we have to re-imagine our health and social care models to meet the challenge of an ageing population with greater levels of chronic disease. The digital revolution offers us the potential to leverage technological innovations to develop proactive ‘connected’ health and social care models that are built around the patient’s needs to facilitate efficient management of wellness and health throughout their lifespan. However, efforts to utilize technological innovations for this purpose have not been universally successful to date, indicating that technology itself is only part of the solution. To achieve a truly connected, technology enabled, health and social care model we need to overcome some key challenges; first, we need to optimize the process of sensing data from end users in the home and community such that monitoring protocols are built around the person and designed with respect to their needs to provide for accurate and reliable harvesting of target data. We then need to gather and mine large datasets from the home and community to analyse the complex relationships between home and community acquired data and health status. Only then can we begin to design, implement and evaluate new models of care that leverage technology platforms. In meeting this challenge we can leverage technology to transform the way in which we promote and manage wellness and health throughout the lifespan.