Will 2014 be the yr telehealth comes of age?

A carry-your-own-gadget policy could turn into commonplace in the NHS as Microsoft stop supplying tech assistance for Windows XP. Photograph: OJO Images / Rex Features

Just as we get used to writing 2013, 2014 is with us. But ratherthan searching back at a 12 months that brought huge reform, large headlines and huge alter, I thought I’d search forward to what the coming twelve months may bring.

We know the present model of healthcare is not sustainable. As we not too long ago heard from one particular consumer, there is no such point as “winter” stress. The pressure is continual and year-round – and it will just get worse if the healthcare program doesn’t do anything to transform the way care is delivered.

With the strain on acute hospitals – be it in overstretched A&ampE units, cancelled operations, bed blockers or hospital-acquired infections, leading of the wish listing for numerous will be telehealth and telecare. Yes, we have heard it all before, but maybe this genuinely will be the yr that telehealth comes of age.

Of course, retaining individuals in their properties does indicate added pressures on community-primarily based providers, like social care, well being, private and third sector suppliers. I predict that 2014 will be the yr of the agile employee – this implies offering personnel access to information and information on the move, helping them spend more time with patients and much less time travelling or in the workplace. It is a culture change that needs careful consideration and detailed organizing and implementation in order to reap the rewards, but the rewards are there.

Another issue is how all the care professionals seeing a patient may talk with each other, and make positive that they see the patient as a man or woman, not as a hospital patient or a social care services consumer.

Interoperability is the phrase on the tip of everyone’s tongue. I assume to see true traction right here – specially to help the paperless challenge, as the health secretary’s objective that everybody who wishes will be capable to get on the web accessibility to their own wellness records held by their GP by March 2015 is now only 14 months away.

No matter how joined up your systems are, CIOs and IT managers up and down the nation are lying awake at evening worrying about the reality that Microsoft will no longer supply tech support for Windows XP from April. With a reported 85% of the NHS nonetheless on the outdated working technique, this may well spark the shift into managed IT outsourcing deals, or even a lot more excitingly, a deliver-your-personal-device policy turning into more widespread in care organisations.

And lastly, the only way to genuinely realize the pressures an organisation faces will be to flip its information – be it in admissions, prescribing, open data or organisational information – into insight, to be capable to make more informed choices about care and budgetary priorities.

Will 2014 be the 12 months we create a new world of care where the patient is at the heart of the model? I never believe so, but I think there will be some leaps forward towards that purpose.

David Furniss is portfolio and practice director at BT Global Wellness.

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Will 2014 be the yr telehealth comes of age?