Earlier this month
Salesforce, the worlds leading customer relationship management company,
introduced “Salesforce health cloud”. This health cloud will enable care
coordinators to gain a complete understanding of their patients’ health through
individual profiles, each profile containing a personal health timeline. A
typical profile includes anything from current conditions and medications to
upcoming appointments or test results. The most interesting part of this health
cloud is that health information on ones profile can be populated from a
variety of sources, including EMRs, medical devices, wearables and more.
Imagine, a doctor
being able to access anything from his patients medical records and previous
operations, to information about activity level being recorded on his patients’
Apple Watch. This IT will enable doctors to access need- to-know info about his
patients instantly, making it much easier to make medical recommendations and
decisions on their patients’ behalf.
I am convinced
that this technology is the future of the patient to doctor relationship. When
I say convinced I mean that there is literally no downside to this technology.
One may argue that this is a dangerous idea, that what if some ones health
cloud is hacked, putting potentially harmful health information into the wrong
hands. Well, most people’s health information today is stored on computer
software, so it already can be hacked. So, if you do happen to be someone so
important that there are hackers willing to spend time and resources to get
your records, they could get them, health cloud, or not.
I chose this
article for the following reason. This past summer I broke my thumb, displacing
a ligament in my hand, while playing lacrosse. I visited an orthopedic surgeon
and was told that, in order for my thumb to heal properly, and to avoid a
strong chance of developing arthritis at an early age, I would need to have
surgery. Please, don’t worry about me, the surgery was a complete success and my thumb
is totally healed.
But, post surgery
I noticed that something was amiss. For some reason I kept receiving automated
emails from the practice that performed the operation, requesting that I set up
a “patient portal”. I probably would have never actually signed up, if I had
come across this article, but I figured I might as well see what kind of
competition Salesforce health cloud is up against. So I signed up and was
disappointed to say the least. The portal had five tabs; home, messages, ask a
question, prescriptions, and health forms. It almost looked as seamless as the
final HTML project I did for CS last semester, but not quite. The interface was
boring, slow, and hard to navigate. I spent ten minutes navigating before I
felt an urge to throw my computer into next week. After this traumatic experience
I now yearn for this health cloud. With that being said Salesforce may need to
change its name to Healthforce.
"Salesforce
Introduces Salesforce Health Cloud -- Building Patient Relationships, Not
Records." -- SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
I think Salesforce health cloud will help both patients and doctors alike, as you stated. It will allow for both parties to interact more efficiently. Allowing the medical professional to have a vast amount of personal information all in one place will make their lives a lot easier.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that this "cloud" solution will make it accessible more easily through "profiles" that sound similar to those on LinkedIn, Facebook etc. I feel like nowadays doctors already are noting all medical history online in a database, so it might be tough for this company to start up and get going. On a separate note though, I would be interested in seeing what implications a technology like this could have on health insurance? It could have potential to benefit health insurers as well.
ReplyDelete