Healthcare innovation — experiences from the Netherlands

Abstract

Healthcare delivery is challenged because of the increasing burden of costs as a result of technological developments and in many countries also as a result of aging. In order to keep healthcare accessible we must innovate not only in the medical possibilities but also in the way we deliver healthcare. Opportunities lie in technological innovation, digitalisation, patient centred care, business development and the paradigms we use in healthcare. Digitalization plays an important role, as this enables use to use information throughout the care process. Digitalisation starts with the use of electronic health records.Furthermore, eHealth makes it possible to involve the patient in his own care by shared decision making, self management and home monitoring. Digitalisation can also improve care through decision support systems, developing predictive tools through machine learning and artificial intelligence. Good care requires that information can be shared between healthcare providers and thus data must be exchangeable between systems — interoperability. Next to digitalisation other improvements play an important role such as value based medicine, that puts the value of care for the patient first, development of new organisation of healthcare and new (cheaper) business models.

Keywords:

innovation, digitalisation, information technology, electronic health records, eHealth