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After the doctor's office and the hospital, where healthcare is traditionally delivered, it has now moved to a “third place.” And, this is, wherever the patient happens to be, says Ernst & Young, in its latest healthcare report.
Healthcare costs are becoming unsustainable, in large part due to chronic diseases fuelled by unhealthy lifestyles, ageing populations and increasing standards of living. “It is somewhat ironic that one of the biggest threats to human health (and, by implication, to our economic security) is that we are in danger of becoming victims of our own success,” the report said.
To bring down costs and improve health outcomes, patients and stake-holders of the healthcare system need to change their behaviour. And for this, the epicentre of healthcare – how it is produced, dispensed and consumed and paid for – will move beyond the two traditional places it has been delivered, to where the patient is.
Patient-centric
To drive behavioural change, healthcare will become patient-centric and signs of this are already visible in terms of the new technology platforms like smart phones, applications and sensors that are helping patients manage their own health, the report said.
As healthcare moves into the realm of the third place, it will be delivered in diffused settings through tele-health, home-care and self-management by patients. And to succeed, payers, providers and life-science companies will need to tune their business models to meet patient requirements.
In a “healthcare everywhere” world, patients are empowered by transparent information, mobile technologies and online platforms. The “third place” is both everyplace and no place. For healthcare, the third place is the patient, the report said.
It is estimated by Mobihealthnews, that by August 2012, on the iphone alone there will be more than 13,000 consumer health applications and about 6,000 apps aimed at medical professionals.
Several of them target chronic patients to enable education, monitoring, disease management, communication, analysis of data and so on. Many sensors in the smart phones are linked to physical motion – triggering more apps. From the Runkeeper app that uses GPS data to track runner's routes, speed distance and altitude to the Crunchfu that uses the smartphones motion detector capabilities to create a physical trainer for stomach crunches.
At a time when drug patent expiries and pricing pressures make growth challenging, healthcare's move to the “third place” will make the system more efficient, transparent and valuable to patients and other stakeholders, the report says.
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