As the healthcare system in the United States undergoes a seismic change from being fee-based and volume-based to one that rewards value, a big shift is occurring in demographics concurrently.
Soon, seniors will account for a big chunk of the U.S. population. The population aged 65 and over is projected to increase between 2012 and 2050, and this group will account for more than 20% of the total U.S. population by 2050, according to a 2014 Census report.
Older patients with chronic diseases are a particular burden on the healthcare system and new experiments are being made to keep costs down and deliver better care to them. One model being explored is home-based care where doctors and other clinicians make house calls to chronically ill patients.
But for such programs to work, devices need to talk to each other, systems need to talk to each other, explained Dr. Zia Agha, executive vice president of clinical research and medical informatics at the West Health Institute, a non profit medical research organization.
Agha will deliver a keynote speech entitled “Becoming a Leader in the Transformation of Healthcare: What It Takes to Redefine the Patient Experience for the Aging Population” at the MEDevice San Diego conference and tradeshow organized by the publisher of MD+DI on Sept. 2.
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