Telehealth presents seemingly endless possibilities for the future of healthcare, but it also brings a lot of questions about privacy that a panel of healthcare executives discussed during a recent leadership panel.
Two executives discussed their predictions for the future and their concerns about telehealth during the Becker's Hospital Review 8th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in November.
The panelists were:
- Shafiq Rab, senior vice president and chief information officer of Rush University Medical Center and Rush University System for Health in Chicago.
- Giovanni Piedimonte, vice president of research at Tulane University in New Orleans.
The panelists agreed that the future of medicine is going to go from the exam table to the kitchen table as telehealth allows for care to be delivered at home.
They also predicted that the future will bing highly personalized medicines, as technology allows drugs to be tailored to individual patients.
They said society is moving toward continuous monitoring, and they expect that trend to continue with telehealth advances. Diabetic patients, for example, are able to track their blood sugar at all times with continuous blood sugar monitors. They expect those with other chronic illnesses to benefit from similar advances.
But the panelists also expressed concerns about privacy as telehealth becomes more pervasive. They agreed cybersecurity will be key to maintaining privacy and freedom in the future.