Four Ways Connected Devices Improve Patient Care

Systemic changes to the healthcare system are creating new challenges — and emerging technology is opening the door to new strategies to meet them. Busy doctors spend too much time on electronic health record (EHR) data entry and too little time with patients. The Affordable Care Act encodes policies designed to decrease costs while improving patients' health outcomes. I&O leaders at healthcare companies have an opportunity to contribute to solving these problems. Specifically, I&O can support new patient care strategies by complementing them with innovative connected devices — tablets, smartphones, wearables, ingestibles — for use by clinicians and patients. This report lays out a framework with four scenarios in which connected devices can significantly improve patient care.