Smart hospital: The future of healthcare

摘要

For some time now, healthcare has been shifting from treating diseases in hospitals to managing health with the involvement of patients and healthy citizens, while at the same time emphasizing the need for improved quality of care and value creation [1Wolfe A Institute of Medicine Report: Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century, Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 2(3), 233–235, 2001.Google Scholar, 2Evans J.M. Baker G.R. Berta W. Barnsley J. The evolution of integrated health care strategies.Adv Health Care Manag. 2013; 15: 125-161https://doi.org/10.1108/s1474-8231(2013)0000015011Crossref PubMed Google Scholar]. To much extent this transition is enabled but mature technology with successful implementations in the real-world setting. For example, a recent publication reviewed data from more than 2000 studies evaluating telemedicine implementations in the 53 countries of the WHO European region [[3]Saigí-Rubió F. Borges do Nascimento I.J. Robles N. Ivanovska K. Katz C. Azzopardi-Muscat N. Novillo Ortiz D. The current status of telemedicine technology use across the world health organization european region: an overview of systematic reviews.J Med Internet Res. 2022; 24e40877https://doi.org/10.2196/40877Crossref Scopus (14) Google Scholar]. Pooled results show a clear benefit of telemedicine interventions to reduce time to respond, and to reduce unnecessary visits to the hospitals and unnecessary referrals to specialists. Streamlining patient empowerment, using technology amongst else, is also driving the healthcare evolution, thus leading to increasingly more informed patients and individuals who are actively engaged with their health and wellbeing [[4]Dukhanin V. Topazian R. DeCamp M. Metrics and evaluation tools for patient engagement in healthcare organization- and system-level decision-making: a systematic review.Int J Health Policy Manag. 2018; 7: 889-903https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2018.43Crossref PubMed Scopus (50) Google Scholar]. Another key facilitator is the wide adoption of technology for personal and continuous monitoring of numerous health and disease related parameters, in the hospital, on the go and at the point of care [[5]Nardini C. Osmani V. Cormio P.G. Frosini A. Turrini M. Lionis C. Neumuth T. Ballensiefen W. Borgonovi E. D’Errico G. The evolution of personalized healthcare and the pivotal role of European regions in its implementation.Pers Med. 2021; 18: 283-294https://doi.org/10.2217/pme-2020-0115Crossref PubMed Scopus (28) Google Scholar]. This wealth of health data, collected for the first time in significantly large amounts, can in turn enable meaningful analytics to support personalized risk prediction, timely and correct differential diagnosis, precision therapy, and prognosis and delivery of the right preventive intervention at the opportune moment for each individual. Health care evolution is further driven by the realization of a global underinvestment in health personnel. The ensuing crucial shortage of healthcare workforce which is recorded worldwide overstresses healthcare systems, rendering access to expert personnel and treatment a challenge [[6]Boniol M. Kunjumen T. Nair T.S. Siyam A. Campbell J. Diallo K. The global health workforce stock and distribution in 2020 and 2030: a threat to equity and ‘universal’ health coverage? BMJ.Glob Health. 2022; 7 (0.1136/bmjgh-2022-009316)e009316PubMed Google Scholar]. Given the potential of current technology and the pressing healthcare problems, WHO has identified the integration of new technologies in healthcare as one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century [[7]Ghebreyesus T.A., WHO urgent health challenges for the next decade, 13 Jan 2020, Retrieved on 25/11/2023 from https://www.who.int/news-room/photo-story/photo-story-detail/urgent-health-challenges-for-the-next-decade.Google Scholar]. Although it may be difficult to predict what future healthcare may look like, there is little doubt that the conce