Is Digital Health Evolving Too Quickly?

Digital health is evolving in leaps and bounds, which could be threatening its success. Digital healthcare faces a significant challenge: it is evolving too rapidly for its target market. Health systems struggle to develop new workflows that effectively integrate these technologies, and trying to force them into legacy processes often adds more problems to an overburdened system.

This discrepancy is particularly concerning in maternal health, where timely interventions can be a matter of life and death. Take hypertension, for example. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are among the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity. Elevated blood pressure is a key indicator of HDP, and early identification of this condition can prevent serious complications such as preeclampsia, eclampsia, stroke, and long-term cardiovascular issues. Numerous studies have demonstrated that remote physiologic monitoring (RPM) of blood pressure is effective in identifying and managing HDP before it escalates into an emergency, but slow adoption or inadequately supported implementation prevents these solutions from having a real impact.

The Barriers to Adoption

A worsening physician and healthcare labor shortage isn’t helping. Healthcare providers are often stuck in a vicious cycle of quick fixes and outdated workflows, with little time to learn a new system or way of doing things. Time constraints can keep healthcare providers committed to legacy systems that are not effectively serving their needs or the needs of their patients.

In other cases, healthcare providers may simply reject new technologies, continuing to rely on outdated methods because they are a known entity, even though they may not be as effective. Healthcare is a traditionally conservative industry that does not respond well to the disruptive nature of innovation, and for good reason — no one wants to gamble with a human life.

Because of the high stakes, there can be a tendency to distrust or invalidate new technology. Most healthcare solutions — drugs, tools, protocols, etc. — go through decades of rigorous clinical testing before they come to market. Even when RPM is administered through approved devices, selfmeasuring in an uncontrolled environment might be perceived as an opportunity for inaccuracy. For example, despite evidence showing that home blood pressure monitoring is often more accurate than in-office surveillance, some might raise questions about the reliability of home BP readings.

In the cases where technology overcomes the adoption hurdle, problems can occur if the system is unprepared to handle the influx of data. For example, the increased data from RPM requires more health workers to analyze and respond to the information. Without proper support, this can lead to overload on already burdened healthcare workers and result in delayed or inadequate responses, eroding patient trust in the healthcare system.

Solutions for Effective Implementation

Bridging the gap between the pace of innovation and its slow adoption in maternal health demands a multi-pronged strategy: one that prioritizes not only the implementation of new technologies but also prepares healthcare systems to integrate them effectively.

To effectively integrate technology like RPM into maternal health care, it’s essential to consider its adaptation across multiple dimensions rather than as a single intervention. For example, in addition to earlier identification of HDP in high-risk patients, widespread adoption of RPM for blood pressure can reduce the need for frequent in-office prenatal visits for low-risk patients, freeing up resources and potentially improving patient satisfaction. However, this requires careful planning, including training healthcare workers, adjusting workflows, and ensuring that the system can respond to the data provided.

Healthcare systems must invest in the necessary infrastructure to implement digital health tools, and innovators should prioritize solutions that help their end-users manage the increased data flow. AI-driven tools that assist in data analysis can alleviate issues of workforce shortages, ensuring timely and accurate responses to potential issues flagged by RPM.

To manage time constraints, healthcare providers need targeted training that integrates seamlessly into their existing workflows. Developing concise, accessible educational programs that focus on the practical application of RPM technologies can help ease the transition. These programs need to emphasize the value of RPM in improving maternal outcomes, take the opportunity to dispel myths about inaccuracy and deliver guidance on interpreting data from remote monitoring devices.

The Bigger Picture

Successfully implementing these strategies demands a concentrated effort from all stakeholders, particularly those who have the means to financially incentivize resource-poor health systems. Advocating for policy changes that support the integration of digital health solutions is critical. This includes securing funding for RPM implementation, offering incentives for healthcare providers to adopt new technologies, and establishing guidelines that standardize the use of RPM across different care settings. Government agencies and healthcare organizations have to work together to create a regulatory environment that encourages innovation while ensuring patient safety.

To be truly effective, any technology must deliver tangible value. Providers need to witness the benefits firsthand; a simple pitch or demonstration is not sufficient. It is essential that operators experience, on a weekly if not ideally daily basis, how this technology improves their workflow, adds value to patient care, and becomes an indispensable tool. Moreover, different users need to see this value through their own prisms (i.e., what a medical assistant will find valuable may be different than a doctor).

Mandating change without ongoing support or assuming that a solution will naturally gain momentum is counterproductive. Acknowledging, with humility, that any transition is inherently challenging, and ensuring that both the creators and implementers of the technology are committed to supporting the process every step of the way, is crucial to success.

As technology becomes more ingrained in everyday life, particularly among younger, tech-savvy, and educated patients of reproductive age, the expectation for such innovations in healthcare grows. By addressing the challenges associated with adopting innovations like remote blood pressure monitoring, we can better utilize technology. The key lies in viewing technology not just as a tool, but as an integrated part of a larger, adaptive healthcare strategy that evolves alongside patient needs and expectations.

This article was written by Loral Patchen, Senior Faculty Midwife Attending, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC, and Anish Sebastian, CEO of Babyscripts, Washington, DC. Patchen, PhD, MSN, leads several innovative research programs to promote improved health decision making, address social drivers of maternal health outcomes, and optimize use of digital technology in healthcare. Sebastian co-founded Babyscripts in 2014 with the vision that Internet-enabled medical devices and big data would transform the delivery of pregnancy care. For more information on the MedStar Washington Hospital Center, visit here . For more information on Babyscripts, visit here .