Are digital health technologies moving too fast for healthcare providers to keep up?
Although innovations for older adults, such as remote monitoring sensors and disease screeners, have appealed to the long-term care market, the rapid pace of innovation often means the research validating them is too thin or unverified, researchers warn.
In addition, long-term care operations overall still lack the knowledge and coordination to effectively implement new software solutions, such as those with artificial intelligence capabilities, a new report warns.
The study, which details some of the challenges to adopting new technology as well as some pitfalls regarding unproven claims, concludes by strongly recommending “development of a universal evidence framework” that could guide use of technology in long-term care settings.
“The implementation of digital health technologies within long-term care is usually done in the absence of a systematic process,” the researchers write, “as well as insufficient technological support and infrastructure, and inadequate staff training. This implicates a moral duty for scientists as well as for industry and long-term care organizations.”
The researchers called out falls-reduction systems, as well as certain dementia assessments, as being widely adopted without sufficient proof or research to back manufacturers’ claims about their clinical benefit.
The researchers recommend that any new tool for long-term care must be:
- Sufficiently validated.
- Compatible with the current digital system or workflow of the organization.
- Aligned with the end-user’s knowledge and digital abilities.
Despite those concerns, many long-term care operators have adopted a guiding principle that tools provide interoperability and make sure all their health systems are integrated and working seamlessly.
In addition, although some experts believe that initial adoption of electronic health records were not user-friendly and caused problems for staff members unfamiliar with the tools, newer software often addresses this problem. Although there is no universal program in the United States or elsewhere for senior tech literacy, many operators do provide training and courses to help residents.
The call for digital health guidance was published earlier this month in the journal Age and Ageing, the official publication for the British Geriatrics Society.
