Imma Alberch
Aymerich: The use of digital technologies in health is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
On 29 April, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona hosted the conference "The challenges of mobile health", the aim of which was to present Hospital Clínic's mHealth Observatory, a project led by Dr Inma Grau
Digital technologies must be used to favour health
The conference was presented and opened by Dr Josep M. Campistol, general manager of Hospital Clínic, and Dr Marta Aymerich, Vice President for Strategic Planning and Research at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and president of the UOC's eHealth Center.
Dr Campistol pointed out that integrating technology into our healthcare system is a key factor in helping to alleviate a system that is saturated and under stress. Similarly, Dr Aymerich expressed the need in academia to include knowledge and scientific evidence in mobile health (m-health). This was one of the initial reasons for creating the UOC’s eHealth Center.
The event also featured the participation of David Vidal, director of Information Systems at Hospital Clínic, who gave the first of the talks. The expert made a theoretical reflection on the current challenges facing m-health, where he defined two visions for approaching these challenges of the future. Firstly, he spoke of a more human, social vision concerned with promotion through m-health tools, proactivity and patient empowerment. Secondly, he outlined a more economic vision centred on the promotion of more sustainable and economical health systems.
Vidal commented that mobile technology tools allow us to take medical care to patients, so improving satisfaction, strengthening the practitioner-patient relationship, preventing journeys and improving care in the areas where there is a shortage of practitioners.
The human touch at health centres
Dr Manuel Armayones, doctor in Psychology and the eHealth Center's development director, insisted that information and communication technologies (ICT) should, under no circumstances, be tools that replace people. In this regard, one of the challenges of the future, according to Dr Armayones, is to prevent these tools from ending up creating dehumanized spaces. He underlined the fact that we need to work on humanization plans that many hospitals are currently putting in place and that are aimed at “creating as pleasant an emotional experience for people as possible during their stay at the hospital”. To do this, the speaker stressed the importance of the chief behavioural officer, who has emerged from the branch of psychology and persuasion and who places focus on analysing individuals’ emotional experience as technology users.
Similarly, he insisted that we need to work on preventing mobile technology from becoming another barrier that creates and reproduces social inequalities.
Examples of the use of mobile technology in health
The second part of the conference revolved around examples of the use of mobile technology in health. First up was a talk by Dr Jordi Serrano, family doctor and CEO of UniversalDoctor, who described his experience on the business side of e-health. This was followed by Dr Imma Grau, director of Hospital Clínic's mHealth Observatory, who spoke of the results of the Observatory’s first challenge: mapping out the 35 m-health projects currently being undertaken at Hospital Clínic.
Finally, during the debate session, Sílvia Cufí, director of corporate development at the TIC Salut Social Foundation, which is an organism from the Government of Catalonia's Department of Health, gave a brief presentation of the mConnecta platform. The aim of this platform is to contribute to the transformation that the Catalan health and social system must tackle while encouraging the public to take care of their own health through the use of mobile technology.
The eHealth Center would like to thank Hospital Clínic for the letting us take part in the conference. Congratulations on the initiative!