Is the future of healthcare data-driven personalised medicine?

If there were a silver lining to surviving a global pandemic, it is the human capacity to find solutions to what were once intractable problems. 

The Crimean War gave rise to infection and sanitation control that slashed preventable deaths. WWII proved the benefits of penicillin and sulphur drugs. Even the Vietnam conflict produced an unlikely medical breakthrough — Super Glue (to seal wounds). 

So, the Covid–19 pandemic proved the value of remote treatments (telehealth), big data and analytics for epidemiology, and new ways to discover, test and distribute life-saving drugs using powerful supercomputers and digital modelling. 

“Person-centred care around a patient’s changing needs while potentially saving on healthcare costs is at the core of the digital patient journey,” says Professor Warren Harding, global VP of healthcare & National Industry lead at Akkodis.

“Digitization of patient records and workflows, data analytics and AI-assisted patient diagnostics, are at the heart of digital healthcare transformation. Globally we are seeing more data transforming pharma and clinical insights and more efficient decentralised clinical trials”.

Much of this transformation is enabled by data and connected devices.

Medical wearables are one of the ways technology is contributing to advancements in patient care. Australian healthtech start-up MediVitals, an AI clinical decision support company has developed a TGA approved platform to present patient data captured from a bio-band device.

A collaboration between MediVitals and global digital engineering powerhouse, Akkodis, is using patient biometric data in combination with advanced analytics to boost medical outcomes and has application around the world in ED, acute care, general ward, GP centred community care, aged care as well as other key industries.  

“MediVitals captures the biomarkers of temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, GPS and ECG (electroencephalogram),” said Harding. 

 In addition to providing real-time monitoring, data created by these devices can also be used to send alerts. Over time, data created by the device can be also processed using advanced analytics and AI to predict and support better patient health outcomes.

 “This is an example of how data analytics and predictive technology [using artificial intelligence or AI] can create personalised medical support for patients. It's an opportunity for a company generating f patient data to work with Akkodis — which is world class in analytics and data science — in the creation of algorithms that provide these insights.” 

 The patient-centred journey core to future health benefits 

 MediVitals is one of a number of emerging technologies such as wearables including f trackers and smart watches and processes including telehealth and electronic scripts (‘e-scripts’) as ways to digitally enable the patient’s needs in the delivery of healthcare. 

For medical practitioners, data and analytics, medical device monitoring and electronic health records are growing in importance alongside emergent generative AI diagnoses and medical imaging. (see sidebar) 

Easing burdens on patients as they proceed along their healthcare journey from their first 1000 days to their last should be paramount for future system design, Harding said.  

“The ideal patient journey is where the patient owns the data, the data follows the patient, and the data is interoperable and available in real-time. That journey needs to be seamless.” 

Electronic health records, medical device tracking and inter-agency data-sharing are all part of this process. Connected digital data is the conduit that will supercharge better medical outcomes. Harding said.

 Automation and advanced simulation and training systems will also help to improve healthcare quality and address current nurse burnout and skills retention.

From supporting well-being and preventative medicine, through early detection and better managed care, the digital patient journey is about delivering better health outcomes for the community.

According to Harding, “Ultimately, the goal is for digital health to help people to live longer, healthier, more independent lives, to support the clinical workforce and lower service costs.”

No ‘I’ in team — Banding together to lift patient outcomes  

Even as patients adopt smart devices and wearables to inform their lifestyle choices, clinicians must collaborate to create a continuum of care. A 2022 Grattan report advocated for ‘teams’ that included allied health professionals to boost health outcomes.  

“GPs’ work has become much more complex as the population has grown older and rates of mental ill-health and chronic disease have climbed. But the way we structure, and fund general practice hasn’t kept up,” Grattan researchers Peter Braedon and Danielle Romanes wrote.  

The solution to fitting more into the traditional 15-minute general practice consult is for patients to share their medical vitals with a support team underwritten by publicly funded Medicare. Assistive technologies such as MediVitals will transform medical delivery into new care settings to open conversations with a broader range of professional groups including counsellors, allied health, paramedical providers, and home care providers. 

 “The number of consultations a year hasn't increased but we have more co-morbidities and more complex conversations, so GPs are now relying on informed consumers. 

 “And they require an intervention around [patient] lifestyle and risk factors. That’s good for the whole community. We cannot have an economy that only deals with treatment and not prevention and GPs have an important primary health role to play.” 

Visit Akkodis Australia to learn how the global digital engineering powerhouse is helping to transform the delivery of sustainable healthcare solutions in Australia.