Digital Health Technology – The Future of Healthcare

Digital health technology has been on the rise for many years, but with the COVID pandemic of 2020, digital health received a huge boost in acceleration.  Where just two years ago, most medical interactions of any sort were done face to face, now it’s common and even standard for routine visits and treatments to be done virtually or with the least amount of physical contact possible (think drive through COVID testing.)  From doctors, to patients, to pharmaceutical reps, digital health tech, has taken hold of the healthcare industry in big ways. 

Today, 80% of surveyed physicians are making use of digital health tech in their personal and/or professional lives. These physicians are also more likely to recommend digital health tech such as smart gym equipment (211%), smart watches (200%), fitness wearables (182%), smartphone apps (167%), and disease-related devices (146%).  Ninety percent of physicians also make use of social media sites professionally to communicate with other physicians (19%), share videos with patients (17%), repost messages for professional use (16%), and to post professional updates (15%). In fact, more than 1 in 4 doctors are high adopters of digital health in their practice.

Another area where digital health is making a big impact is in the way pharmaceutical reps interact with physicians.  Since the outbreak of the pandemic, in-person sales rep visits fell by 63%, which has created new challenges as 2x as many physicians find in-person visits highly valuable, compared to digital interactions.  Fifty-three percent of physicians rely heavily on pharmaceutical reps for their source of information, second only to medical journals.  The aspects of interactions with pharma reps that physicians value the most are product samples (59%), information on new products (55%), answers to product questions (53%), support for insurance and access (51%), and materials for patient education (47%).  Nearly 1 in 3 doctors expect to see big changes in physicians/rep interactions within the next two years. 

The third major area of growth bin digital health usage is, of course, with patients. Patients who make use of digital health feel that it allows them to better manage their own health and to be more informed. Seventy-five percent see increased ease of access to their health records and 67% report greater access to new health information.  Sixty-four percent believe digital health helps with appointment scheduling, and 63% see improved interactions with physicians.  Digital health is even more valuable to patients with chronic conditions.  One in three of these patients prefer telemedicine for routine visits and treatments. Those with chronic conditions also find other digital health tools valuable such as websites related to their conditions (61%), online-disease related resources (56%), links to patient advocacy groups (53%), health-related smartphone apps (49%), and pharmaceutical company or product websites (47%). 

It is simply part of human nature to resist changes, and some 2020 certainly brought us our fill of “new normals”.  Nevertheless, doctors, patients, and pharma reps all agree that digital health is growing and is doing much to improve the state of healthcare. 

 

<a href=”https://www.realchemistry.com/article/5-things-to-know-about-the-rapid-acceleration-of-digital-health”><img src=”https://assets.website-files.com/602810ff8259272fd981f232/6064f11a93a7d2247ef085d2_acceleration-digital-health.png” alt=”Acceleration of Digital Health” width=”1000″ border=”0″ /></a><br /><a href=”https://www.realchemistry.com/”>Via: realchemistry.com</a>

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