The Digital Patient

Patients possess a body of knowledge about themselves that we can never hope to master, and we have a body of knowledge about medicine that they can never hope to master. Our job is to bring these two groups together so we can serve each other well

The digital patient represents the future of healthcare, empowering individuals with real-time health data and personalized care through innovative technology. Quoting Robert Wachter again, the job of bringing together patients and clinicians has been made potentially easier with digital technology. It's the 'potentially' that frustrates, however. Patients are often much readier than clnicians to embrace digital technology they are familiar with in almost all othere aspects of their lives.

My experience is that clinicians are very keen in principle, but worry about information governance, patient safety and lack of interoperability between patient-facing applications and existing records systems. Organisations themselves have admin structures that are still based on paper-based legacy workflows. I have worked through some of these patient-facing application challenges with stakeholders.

• Patient Portal development, Cardiff & Vale UHB
  

• Advising on etsbalishment of Digital Services for Patients and the Public (DSPP) Programme, NHS Wales
  

• Engaging National Clinical Networks with DSPP