AI digital health care transformation: Could this trend impact benefits engagement?

The increased use of telehealth during the pandemic showed how willing your employees are to adapt to digital health care methods.

In fact, between March 2019 and March 2021 the use of, and willingness to use, video telehealth jumped from 51% to 62%, according to a study by RAND Corporation.

But are your people and your health plan partner ready for a new digital health care landscape with increased sharing of data sets – such as background, lifestyle, environment, genetic info and pharmacy details – with different providers across a health system in real time?

That patient record info, along with diagnostic data like vital signs, lab results and other critical care areas, will be the type of data physicians and specialists will be depending on to make more precise decisions, create a coordinated and integrated treatment plan and improve patient experience, said GE HealthCare President and CEO Peter Arduini.

“Harnessing this tremendous potential of data – it really is the promised land, and it’s where we’re headed,” he said during the Thomson Reuters “Total Health 2022” event in Chicago.

Next step in evolution of digital health care

Instead of providing symptoms and treatment information that’s already happened, real-time digital health care platforms use multimodal data, AI and machine learning algorithms to deliver the right information to the right clinicians at the right time to determine the best approaches (e.g., surgery, medication, etc.) and outcomes. It can also include a breakdown of what different care approaches will cost.

In the presentation “Operation Next: Improve Sustainability and Transform Care Delivery,” Arduini gave a case study example of how AdventHealth Orlando adopted a real-time digital health care platform that’s connected to the tablet computers of doctors on daily rounds. The shared data insights led to a reduction of costs associated with care – something that could positively impact your health plan provider and your employees.

This amped-up integrated data sharing model can even be extended to loop in individual employees that use monitoring apps to help manage chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. “No one goes from good to sick in seconds, typically. … The ability to follow those subtle signals of disease state, or track episodic disease, we believe is a big opportunity,” Arduini said.

With workers craving employers that care about their health, now may be a good time to find out what your health plan’s future strategy is relating to this transformation in digital health care and what information may be appropriate to share with employees about it at open enrollment.