A report by the NHS Confederation says that health services are struggling with new technologies because of top down initiatives and a lack of engagement from clinicians and patients.
The health service has fallen behind in using such technologies, according to Remote control, the patient-practitioner relationship in a digital age, because for too long the development of digital health tools has been stifled by assumptions about what patients want.
Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that numerous pilots and studies show how new communications technologies can improve care, but they are rarely then adopted across the health service.
"We know important barriers still remain in taking up these new technologies. The most important of these is the cultural barrier that people working in the NHS and patients have to the use of technology in healthcare," Edwards said.
Many patient interactions could switch from personal consultation to digital channels. Simple transactions could use automated self service systems, and online appointment booking could become the default arrangement, according to the report.
Personalised management programmes, which allow patients to link their prescriptions to their medical records, already exist, but the report claims these could be used to enable them to track their medications more easily.
The report says that routine care could be centred around the patient having ownership of their own electronic medical record. For long term conditions, digital tools could be used to support greater self management. It adds that many telecare systems can enable much more knowledge to be exchanged between patient and practitioner than takes place in a conventional consultation.
But it cautions that introducing any technology into a human system can have far reaching effects that are difficult to predict. Remote technologies substitute a patient's real life presence with much smaller, virtual fragments of their identity, such as an image on a screen, or a disembodied voice on the phone. It warns that a potential problem is that such changes in presentation can affect how a person is perceived and treated.
However, it concludes that where technologies increase the information and control available to patients, they can help to enhance their role and involvement. Compatibility should be a guiding principle of future digital development as a starting point for future development, the document says.
National accreditation schemes may help to give health leaders a basic level of confidence, but in the long term, concerted effort towards skills development is more likely to achieve results.
Edwards concluded: "Call it the post-bureaucratic or the post-industrial age, the NHS, like any other sector of the economy, has to keep up with developments in technologies.
"In doing so, there is an opportunity to both improve care for patients and make sure resources are better focused when face-to-face care is the only way forward."
The health service has fallen behind in using such technologies, according to Remote control, the patient-practitioner relationship in a digital age, because for too long the development of digital health tools has been stifled by assumptions about what patients want.
Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that numerous pilots and studies show how new communications technologies can improve care, but they are rarely then adopted across the health service.
"We know important barriers still remain in taking up these new technologies. The most important of these is the cultural barrier that people working in the NHS and patients have to the use of technology in healthcare," Edwards said.
Many patient interactions could switch from personal consultation to digital channels. Simple transactions could use automated self service systems, and online appointment booking could become the default arrangement, according to the report.
Personalised management programmes, which allow patients to link their prescriptions to their medical records, already exist, but the report claims these could be used to enable them to track their medications more easily.
The report says that routine care could be centred around the patient having ownership of their own electronic medical record. For long term conditions, digital tools could be used to support greater self management. It adds that many telecare systems can enable much more knowledge to be exchanged between patient and practitioner than takes place in a conventional consultation.
But it cautions that introducing any technology into a human system can have far reaching effects that are difficult to predict. Remote technologies substitute a patient's real life presence with much smaller, virtual fragments of their identity, such as an image on a screen, or a disembodied voice on the phone. It warns that a potential problem is that such changes in presentation can affect how a person is perceived and treated.
However, it concludes that where technologies increase the information and control available to patients, they can help to enhance their role and involvement. Compatibility should be a guiding principle of future digital development as a starting point for future development, the document says.
National accreditation schemes may help to give health leaders a basic level of confidence, but in the long term, concerted effort towards skills development is more likely to achieve results.
Edwards concluded: "Call it the post-bureaucratic or the post-industrial age, the NHS, like any other sector of the economy, has to keep up with developments in technologies.
"In doing so, there is an opportunity to both improve care for patients and make sure resources are better focused when face-to-face care is the only way forward."
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