In the coming years, Dr Chris Morris estimates 70 per cent of care at the NHS GP surgery where he works will be delivered to patients remotely.
Already any patient wanting advice will first be asked to answer questions on their symptoms via telephone, email or text, he explains. They may be asked to snap pictures of “lumps, bumps and rashes” via their smartphone, with images automatically added to their notes. Or asked to join a video consultation to go into further depth, with Morris able to send follow-up advice via SMS. “We don’t want to go back to how things were,” he says.
In fact, this integration of technology into how healthcare is delivered looks set to be a legacy of the pandemic. The risk around in-person care has prompted a wave in adoption of digitally enabled alternatives in the last 12 months, from digital check-ups, to remote monitoring tools and even stethoscopes using artificial intelligence (AI). Such is the speed and scale with which the healthtech market has grown that investment reached record levels of $5.4 billion in the first six months of 2020, according to McKinsey.
On the one hand, many clinicians on the front line, such as Morris, believe these technologies can “help raise the level of patient care” while allowing providers, like GP surgeries, to operate far more efficiently. On the other, there is caution we shouldn’t forget the value of in-person care or underestimate the expertise that needs to accompany even the smartest of digital tools.