Healthcare systems in all countries are undergoing constant change, thereby greatly increasing the needs, requirements and expectations of authorities, patients and those who work in the healthcare service.
Society around us is becoming increasingly digitalized, technology is rapidly become more accessible to everyone, and applications and solutions are experienced as beneficial, necessary, and simply ‘making life easier’. Innovation and new technological advances and solutions are rapid and, every day, new solutions appear that quickly become accessible for the individual. One of these innovation trends – perhaps the most important – in these society-based solutions is in a very important and critical area, i.e. integration. Accessibility to data and the possibility and ability to integrate, use and share data is the very core of what we see in these solutions today. We see this, for example, in Google’s map services, where maps and virtually all other information are integrated, to provide the user with unique functional solutions. We also see such solutions when we can use a simple application, easily and intuitively, to book a hotel or trip virtually anywhere in the world. We also see this when Facebook gives us applications in which all data about the individual is integrated and accessible in constantly new ways and in different situations.
The healthcare service and healthcare systems are facing a particularly challenging task, and it is not simply a case of meeting the expectations for improved quality in the service.
The healthcare service is to be coherent through all treatment levels, the patient is to be regarded as a customer who has powerful rights and who is entitled to self-determination, the need is greatly increasing, and the service must be cost-effective with optimized use of resources.
It goes without saying that healthcare personnel are now also expected to have technological solutions that are as modern as solutions in the rest of society, and that healthcare information is integrated, shared and made accessible. Other expectations are that new innovations are possible and that new applications and solutions make life simpler for people working in healthcare. The question is not if but when such technologies will become as natural in the healthcare system as in all other parts of society and, not least, how this will be made possible.
Currently, there are two main theories about integration in the healthcare ecosystem. The simplest explanation is that everyone chooses the same solution, and that there is a single database and a single application for everything, available to everyone. A seemingly simple solution, but one that is impossible to realize in practice, not only because everyone today wants to replace their existing solutions with something new, and because of all the challenges that such a shift would entail.
It is unlikely and virtually impossible that a solution could cover all the areas of challenge, for all the players in the healthcare system or that have a relationship with the healthcare system, now or in the future. A theory of a simple solution is therefore not a solution for integration and a solution for the future; instead, it is an attempt and a theory to avoid trying to solve the real challenge. The healthcare system is gigantic, undergoing constant change, new developments occur all the time, and the need to enable innovation in the information field is the essence of the challenges facing the healthcare system.
The second route is more challenging, but the only one feasible in practice; in this approach, many systems are integrated and data is shared and distributed in various ways depending on the circumstances, i.e. in the same way that solutions in society are established and developed.
CSAM’s vision, ‘healthcare information without boundaries’, is a goal and a mission to make life simpler for those who work for and with the healthcare services, to make it simpler to be a patient and a customer, and to enable new innovations where data and information is integrated in value-generating solutions and applications.
The core of our vision is integration; our ability and strength to integrate ourselves with other health information, and to serve as an innovation platform for new solutions.
Our integration technology, Connected Healthcare Engine, is based on the premise that there will be many technological solutions within the healthcare field. The key lies in being able to integrate with various solutions, to make data available, and to focus on specialist areas while being part of a bigger picture. This is precisely why CSAM is, and will continue to be, an important and pivotal building block in the comprehensive integrated healthcare system.
Sverre Flatby
CEO
CSAM Health AS