Ashish Atreja, MD, CIO and chief digital health officer of UC Davis Health, said COVID-19 increased consumers’ exposure to digital care and virtual appointments, but failed to consider older patients who may not be tech-savvy, patients who may not have access to the internet and patients who don’t have access to internet-connected devices.
“If we don’t put our singular efforts behind closing that digital divide, we’ll keep increasing the divide by bringing more and more technology to fewer and fewer people,” Dr. Atreja said. “We need to bring technology to more patients. Ultimately our mission is to have no patient, no clinician, left behind in the digital transformation.”
Here’s what UC Davis Health is doing to include all patients in the digital transformation:
- UC Davis Health partnered with Amazon Web Services to create a Cloud Innovation Center focused on addressing challenges surrounding digital health equity.
- The hospital is advocating for more funding that would extend more affordable broadband access and devices to patients.
- A workshop that trains patients how to use digital health technology is being developed by the hospital.
- The hospital is creating a community on its Cloud Innovation Center that will be focused on educating others about digital health divides.
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