December 14, 2022
Spritely’s CEO Christopher Dawson was invited to speak at HiNZ Digital Health Week earlier this month. His chosen topic was equity-led telemonitoring. A full copy of the presentation can be viewed here. The following is an extract that accompanied the first slide.
“Equity led telemonitoring is a very important topic for discussion. That’s because the new health reforms explicitly call for more care to be delivered in the community and at home using data and digital. The reason for this is to improve efficiency for staff and access for patients, without negatively impacting health outcomes.
If patients can be looked after at home without any worse outcomes, then it makes sense to develop models of care to enable that. That’s where technology can be a game changer.
Treatment plans can now be actively managed by clinicians at scale. They don’t have to treat people in a hospital or a clinic where there is limited space. They don’t have to drive to visit them, using up valuable time in transit. Consultations, including visual assessments, monitoring of vital parameters, tracking symptoms, titrating medication and a whole range of other things can be done remotely.
This brings huge advantages to patients and clinicians. But unfortunately, without equity-led telemonitoring systems, not everyone will be able to enjoy these advantages.
If we don’t focus on equity-led telemonitoring and make that a priority, our push to deliver care closer to home using data and digital will inevitably perpetuate or even exacerbate current inequities in the health system.
People that have poor access to health care now, have worse outcomes. If we shift some of that care to be delivered over data and digital, then people with poor access to data and digital will have just as bad outcomes in the future. Particularly if it gets harder to be seen in person, which is already starting to happen.
If we really want to improve outcomes by improving equity of access to healthcare, then we need to be focused on developing new models of care using data and digital that anyone can easily access at home or in their community.”
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Christopher’s talk and slides will be of interest to healthcare professionals thinking about better health access for priority populations. Click this link to hear the full 12-minute presentation and please get in touch if you have questions or ideas to improve low-cost equity of access for telemonitoring.
