Governments should play a role in leveraging digital technology to improve the health care industry, according to a report by the Digital Innovation in Healthcare Working Group, Modern Healthcare reports (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 8/14).
The report was presented earlier this month at the Global Health Policy Summit in London (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 8/15). The summit was supported by the Qatar Foundation and Imperial College of London.
According to the report, the health care industry is facing challenges related to:
- Rising costs of care;
- Limited access to care; and
- Uneven quality of care.
To address these challenges, the report recommends that governments follow six principles to promote transformation in the health care industry:
- Signal to investors and entrepreneurs that digital innovation is a priority for the health care system;
- Establish strong privacy and security standards governing the use of health data;
- Empower patients to access their health information and connect with their health care providers online;
- Establish a system of outcome-based health care payments;
- Revise regulatory requirements to make it easier for clinicians to offer remote care services and align the regulatory process for medical applications with software development cycles; and
- Facilitate rapid sharing of clinical protocols, best practices and outcomes (Modern Healthcare, 8/14).