The various sectors of the healthcare field are not immune to digitalization. Online appointment booking and consultation have thus developed considerably. The public authorities are also investing in the deployment of devices for dependent persons and those suffering from chronic pathologies requiring regular monitoring. Devices and connected objects dedicated to health are essential tools here. What are the major challenges of connected health? How to develop new technologies, while improving the practitioner-patient relationship and reducing costs?
Facilitating the care of dependent persons
Dependent people need constant medical monitoring. Faced with the lack of space in specialized establishments, connected health is intended to promote home care. Some devices have a strictly medical function.
These are connected objects providing of data essential to the daily monitoring of certain pathologies: systems for measuring cardiac activity, blood sugar readers for patients suffering from diabetes… Systems allow the control of the correct intake of treatments, in particular connected pillboxes capable of sending alerts.
Other preventive devices used in the security field, such as motion detectors, can be mobilized to ensure that the person is moving normally in their home.
Regular medical follow-up and dematerialization of the medical file
The use of teleconsultation is growing significantly, both for specialized and general medicine. Teleconsultation allows to :
- reduce travel costs,
- get an appointment more quickly, maintain the practitioner-patient relationship
- benefit from regular consultations to monitor certain diseases such as diabetes, even in medical deserts.
Subject to the patient’s agreement, all healthcare professionals can now access the Shared Medical Record and thus adapt the treatment according to the medical history. The CNIL ensures that connected health complies with the terms of personal data protection provided by the regulations. The CNIL is particularly vigilant about the arrival of private operators in the connected health and medical data sectors.
Towards an ever more intelligent medicine with new technologies
The exploitation of a large amount of data by connected health is one of the challenges that can be met by artificial intelligence. Predictive studies are able to participate in the development of research in various fields (vaccines, new treatments), and to determine the theevolution of a pathology from which a patient suffers, with a view to prevention.
Moreover, innovation – no matter how intelligent – must be within everyone’s reach. Therefore, it is particularly important that dependent people are offered innovations that are easier to use in their daily lives, thanks to technological developments.