DIGITAL HEALTH ADVANCES have transformed many clinical disciplines. However, digital health innovation is relatively nascent in cancer care, which represents the fastest growing area of healthcare spending.  Various opportunities for digital health innovation in oncology include patient-facing technologies that improve patient experiences, safety, and patient-clinician interactions, clinician-facing technologies that improve their ability to diagnose pathology and quality of care, and technology infrastructure to improve clinical workflows and documentation.

OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES IN CANCER CARE

Oncologists spend most of their time in diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients and face many operational challenges in cancer care delivery daily.
Resource intensive cancer care delivery demands leaders to take charge of their operations. An operation focused delivery with the aim to reduce costs, increase safety, improving clinical outcomes will allow an organisation to compete effectively in an aggressive marketplace.
According to the American Institute of Cancer Research, cancer costs the world approximately US$895bn a year. This means that while advancements in cancer treatments are increasing, so are costs.

And, according to Cancer Research UK, the cost of cancer drugs is increasing by 10% per year. Alongside drugs, the cost of diagnosis, radiation, chemotherapy, imaging, pathology, surgery, and end-of-life care are also increasing exponentially.
The Independent Clinical Oncology Network in South Africa estimates that, depending on the type of cancer, treatment locally can cost anything between R10 000 and R1m per patient, per year.

KEEPING MEDICAL COSTS UNDER CONTROL

Owing to the vast potential for digital health technologies to improve quality and reduce spending in cancer care it is incumbent upon all players in the value chain to envision new ways to deliver oncology care and to facilitate broader, patient-centric integration of digital health in cancer care. A collaboration between Altron HealthTech and Dischem Oncology aims to provide clinicians the opportunity of standardising electronic health record (EHR) data to enable interoperability, increased patient access to and control of health data, and establishing payment reforms to offset the costs of digital health infrastructure.

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Contact Altron HealthTech to book a demo today or drop us an email at healthtech.sales@altron.com