In a couple years healthcare will change revolutionary. Big hospitals will disappear. At least, that is what the Dutch minister Edith Schippers and State Secretary Martin van Rijn claim. Apart from new medical complaints like ‘tablet-neck’, ‘iPad-wrist’, ‘WhatsApp-thumb’ and ‘selfie-elbow’, there is another development going on which is called e-health. E-health is explained as the use of technology to support or improve health and healthcare. As a consequence of e-health, patients will be able to control their health and there are more advantages.
Advantages
First of all, healthcare will be closer to patients as e-health provides solutions like an online patient portal where they can make appointments, see their research results and medical and medication information. They can also e-mail questions to their doctor or nurse. Secondly, e-health will reduce costs. This is as a result of the first advantage. Because of the quicker access to your medical information and easier contact with doctors, it will save a lot of time and visits to the hospital. Thirdly, it will be easier for patients to monitor their health themselves and therefore be more independent.
Drawbacks
E- health will stimulate the use of smartphones and other electronic devices, whereas this causes medical complaints as mentioned in the introduction. For this reason, it might be better to put smartphones away more often and just enjoy the ‘real’ world. Secondly, only 16% of the patients are using these new possibility of requesting their medicines online and solely 3% asks questions online according to the e-health Monitor 2016 of research institutions Nictiz and Nivel. So a lot of patients are not even able to find their ‘digital doctor’ and the ones that do find the new online possibilities say it’s not user friendly.
Furthermore, it will be dangerous for the health of patients if digital records are transferred in a bad way, like medication overviews which are not up to date. There is a serious problem here, because the computer systems are not connecting to one another. Lastly, the digital healthcare market is a growing market where billions are circulating, however it is not even sure if e-health is really going to improve healthcare and make it cheaper.
Concluding, there has to be done a lot more of testing and research regarding e-health before it will become a real revolution instead of a hype.
Sources:
Zorgvisie. (2016). Zorgvisie – E-health dossier. [online] Available at: https://www.zorgvisie.nl/home/dossiers/e-health/ [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016].
Nos.nl. (2016). ‘Zo’n e-consult vind ik het handigste dat er is’. [online] Available at: http://nos.nl/artikel/2126626-zo-n-e-consult-vind-ik-het-handigste-dat-er-is.html [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016].
Haks, K. (2016). Smartphonestress. FysioPraxis, (9), p.3.
Nos.nl. (2016). E-health: hype of zorgrevolutie?. [online] Available at: http://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2114269-e-health-hype-of-zorgrevolutie.html [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016].
Ad.nl. (2016). Patiënt komt niet bij digidokter. [online] Available at: http://www.ad.nl/dossier-nieuws/patient-komt-niet-bij-digidokter~ae12f17e/ [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016].
Nice article Emily, you point some interesting ideas. The only thing I notice is that you do not consider the topic of online privacy of the patients in your blog. I think that the online privacy of very personal information is an ethical question that should be considered in a topic like this. Nevertheless, I am convinced that E- health can bring down the cost of healthcare in general and health care premiums can be reduced. This is obviously a very good development.
Furthermore, patients will need to be well informed about how they can manage their healthcare in an online world. I therefore fully agree with you that there is still much testing and research required in order to achieve a well- functioning E- healthcare system. A very timely and interesting topic!