A move from a reactive to proactive, illness prevention is the future of healthcare systems as life expectancy increases and chronic conditions become more frequent, illustrated by the concept of population health: balancing the intensive management of those in the greatest need of health care with preventative and personal health management for those at lower risk levels.
To be effective, population health requires robust holistic and longitudinal patient data to allow clinicians to address acute and chronic conditions at the same time as expanding their focus to identify all individuals in their patient population with potential conditions. Virtual health care has a space in helping care providers efficiently and cost effectively aggregate and analyse patient data, facilitate care coordination and enable patient communication and education to maximise the potential of population health.
Six virtual healthcare case studies set across three study countries (Germany, the USA and the UK) were reviewed in this study to analyse key policies and practices across their design and set-up, outcomes across clinical and health measures, patient and provider experience, the potential for cost-saving for the health system, and issues surrounding data security, storage, and ethics. The findings were used to shape recommendations on the role of virtual health care and the pharmaceutical sector in improving population health.
A roundtable event was held on the 23rd of March, 2021. Materials from this event are available on this page, as well as the final report.