8. Addressing the Environmental Impact of Healthcare IT
As the healthcare technology trends above show, digitalization offers great potential for delivering care more effectively and efficiently. For example, by applying clinical decision algorithms and predictive analytics, data can be used to provide personalized, actionable insights, such as alerting acute care teams to potential problems or encouraging healthy behaviors through app-based coaching.
Because digital solutions are scalable, they can support greater prevention, improve triage, reduce healthcare costs, and enable a shift from resource-intensive clinical settings to lower-cost field or home-based care. And for the 3.5 billion people around the world who currently lack healthcare, digital health technologies can expand access to much-needed sustainable healthcare models.
But all this “digital goodness” comes at a price: more than 30% of the world’s data is generated by healthcare. [4]Healthcare data is projected to grow at 36% between 2018 and 2025, faster than any other data type. [5]The good thing is that research [6] The resource savings realized by IT outweigh the increased footprint that comes with adopting that technology, such as moving to the cloud. But to realize these savings on an ongoing basis, the healthcare industry must focus on building a sustainable digital infrastructure, including carbon-free cloud solutions, using circular hardware, and developing sustainable software.
Encouragingly, the growing trend of medical technology companies, health systems, suppliers, and other stakeholders working together to ensure the right decisions are being made to reduce the environmental impact of health IT for a sustainable future is expected to continue in 2024 and beyond.
