Future of Healthcare Could Mean Digitization for Both Docs and Patients

According to a report from WNYC’s New Tech City, the future of the healthcare industry is headed toward full digitization for both patients and doctors alike. The Federal Government plans to spend up to $29 billion in incentives to push healthcare providers to digitize records, reported New Tech City.

The findings of a recent Money Tree Report revealed that venture capital funding for healthcare IT has tripled over the last three years, from $343 million to $955 million. Healthcare IT includes things such as new ways for hospitals and doctors’ offices to process claims, track patient prescriptions, and more. The WNYC article claims that the Government believes that digitizing medical records and other processes will improve quality of care and save time, money, and even lives. The Affordable Care Act threatens to penalize hospitals and providers that do not adopt electronic records by 2014.

Digitizing the future of healthcare not only means implementing electronic medical records and new device technologies at medical facilities, it also means patients have more access to doctors, records, diagnostics, treatment options, and prescriptions through new hospital software and mobile apps. "As the information becomes more transparent and you understand how to interact with it, how you consume healthcare is most assuredly going to change,” said Don Jones, vice president of global strategy and market development for Qualcomm Life. 

Should the Affordable Care Act be put into place in January 2013, the future of healthcare will be in large part dictated by financial incentives to make the digital transition. Both articles indicate a major shift in all areas of healthcare that will create changes in the process of care, patient authority and knowledge, hospital organization, and much more.

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