Swedish care is fantastic. In an international perspective, it is of high quality, that is, it helps a patient with the problems he has. It is also, comparatively speaking, cost-effective. The big problem in healthcare is accessibility. In Sweden, we have to wait far too long to get help and everyone who lives in Sweden has at some point sighed when they sat too long in a waiting room or received an invitation to a time we cannot. In addition, healthcare is now facing a gigantic challenge, the tax revenues that currently finance healthcare will not be enough in just a few years.
So what does healthcare do? Well, they do a lot. Diligent care managers engage in a variety of initiatives. They are about everything from being even more cost-effective, to finding new solutions that better provide care for people who need it. These are great investments and they are needed. We need to support our vital healthcare workers and give them all the resources they can get.
But one thing we don't see as much of. When I study healthcare, I see too few initiatives that deal with how, via digital solutions, people can be empowered to take care of their own health. People who learn to use new technological solutions, from apps to robots and other innovations, can help people take care of their own health in a way that reduces overall care needs. Such measures, digitized prevention, have the potential to radically reduce the pressure on our healthcare apparatus.
In the same way, digital solutions of various kinds can help with rehabilitation. In this way, the number of return visits can be reduced and people with previous care needs can return to full health more quickly. Here, digital technology can support former patients with reminders about rehabilitation and support to live a healthy life. Here, too, with the result of greatly reducing the pressure on the care device.
A problem in this context is that the digital technology is not sufficiently developed. From a customer perspective, it has unfortunately been far too easy to buy technology but difficult to buy solutions.
Digitization could improve healthcare in the way I point out above. A report from the consulting company McKinsey shows that Sweden can save 180 billion by digitizing healthcare. But the most important point of digitization is easily missed - namely that it should take place with the aim of adapting care to the needs of individuals and supporting their processes so that they are healthy. The goal of digitization is not more technology but better health. The gaze needs to be directed outwards towards the patients and not inwards towards the organization or the technology itself.
What then needs to happen in order for healthcare to be able to handle its accessibility problems and for IT companies to develop solutions that support this? Well, it's about us needing to start from the user. This is not easy. Loads of research shows that too many organizations prefer to look out for their own good and the aforementioned McKinsey report is just another example of this (they focus on money saved not better health). Even healthcare, which has talked a lot about patient-centeredness in recent years, needs to improve. Just the word patient, which is about someone who waits patiently, rhymes badly with an organization that wants to increase its availability.
Within the framework of the Digital Well Arena, the goal is to carry out research that aims to make it easier for care recipients to use digital technology that facilitates prevention and rehabilitation. In this way, we reduce the pressure on care. We also create opportunities for the IT companies to develop solutions based on the needs of users so that they can reach the value-creating goal of health. Digital solutions that support people's ability to stay or return to health – this is an important goal for research within the Digital Well Arena.
/Per Kristensson, professor and director of the Center for Service Research at Karlstad University
