Top 10: Ways in to Increase Trust in Digital Healthcare

The integration of digital technologies is transforming how healthcare is managed. As healthcare organisations strive to enhance the patient experience and improve operational efficiency, several key elements must be prioritised to ensure successful implementation of digital healthcare, here’s our Top 10 ways to increase trust in it.

10. Regulatory compliance

Healthcare regulations, like HIPAA, make sure that legal and ethical data handling is followed.

In our interview with Michael Scholz, VP of Product & Customer Marketing at commercetools, he discussed how healthcare organisations can leverage composable commerce to enhance their operational efficiency and customer experience.

“HIPAA compliance enables the secure processing of Protected Health Information (PHI) in the US market. That’s the first composable commerce solution that securely processes PHI under a BAA framework, allowing healthcare and life sciences companies to sell online in the US.”

9. User-friendly interfaces

While not excluded to the healthcare sector, older healthcare patients can struggle with using new technologies. But even those who are familiar with technology can give up on a service if the information is perceived as too technical or complicated to follow. This makes effective human machine interfaces (HMI) more crucial, because designing for the average customer — not just the tech-savvy ones — means that devices will be used correctly.  

There is a huge opportunity to improve care for the elderly through more intuitive medical devices with a simple, intuitive HMI. For example, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, 55% of the elderly are non-compliant with their prescription drug orders. Helping the elderly population to interface with digital healthcare will help address care gaps, enable patient education and improve healthcare quality.

8. Reliable and accurate information

Claudia Pastides spoke with Healthcare Digital to tell us about her role as Flo’s Director of Medical Accuracy and how medical misinformation is impacting women's health. 

From Flo’s social media platforms to its marketing, everything with medical information in it is either co created with Flo or reviewed by it. 

“Our in-house medical team also includes another medical director (responsible for medical safety) and three other medical advisors, plus a team of scientists,” she said. “Our goal as a team is to make sure everything at Flo is clinically safe and accurate, based on sound medical evidence, and engaging (and, when possible, entertaining too!).”

7. Integration with traditional healthcare

As with many industries, the only constant is change, but it can be very hard to let go of traditional methods and patterns. 

Breakthroughs in AI can take a traditional method and make it more efficient and less expensive. For example, the traditional ways in which vaccines are given has been transformed by US researchers, who have developed a way in which the need for multiple injections could become eradicated through a new technique.

6. LGBT+ inclusion 

There are 1.4bn people over the age of 60 alive today - more than at any other time in history - and all of them have healthcare needs. While just 1% of the Baby Boomer generation identifies as LGBT+, research also shows that members of the LGBT+ community are facing discrimination and even abuse in healthcare settings.

"Victims often have no children, so they don't have that network of people visiting them, which means that there is less scrutiny and that makes them more vulnerable," explained Eileen Chubb, author of the report Compassion in Care, which explored LGBT+ training for healthcare professionals.

In order to support all patients, especially those at risk of abuse, those building digital healthcare technologies should ensure that they are supportive of the LGBT+ community, offering them a potential sanctuary to report abuse. 

5. Verification

63% of adults said that they would be willing to engage with online healthcare services, if they had robust identity verification measures to protect users. Verification would cover installing systems to verify the credentials of the healthcare professionals offering services, as well as verifying the identity of the person accessing their own healthcare information from, for example, a healthcare app. 

Digital healthcare verification is also important outside of the healthcare sector. During the pandemic, Forbes Travel Guide and digital healthcare company Sharecare developed a health verification system for hotels and travel resorts, so that guests could feel safe during their visit. 

4. Open communication channels

Proactive communications are proven to boost engagement, regardless of sector. Roni Jamesmeyer, Senior Healthcare Manager at Five9 spoke with Healthcare Digital about keeping hospital patients engaged in care with open communication channels. 

“Keeping patients informed, scheduling or rescheduling appointments and managing repeat prescriptions can all become more efficient through the use of proactive comms,” she said. “AI is vital to keep the lines of communication open when healthcare staff are overstretched, delivering proactive comms that help to keep patients out of A&E.”

3. Transparency in AI and algorithms

To overhaul the healthcare system, the sector must address the fundamental root cause issues within the system, such as the lack of transparency, especially in the age of AI. 

“The recent advancements in AI can play a crucial role in proactively identifying health patterns and risks across different patient groups,” said Zak Holdsworth, CEO and Co-founder of Hint Health. “This enables more effective preventive strategies and personalised care, leading to better patient outcomes and reduced long-term healthcare costs.”

However, Zak is clear that there must be a commitment to pricing transparency to eliminate billing surprises.

2. Patient control over data

From a patient perspective, digital healthcare will allow individuals to take more control of their medical decisions through apps and other user-friendly technology. Online healthcare systems will be more interactive, similar to how online banking. This will let patients become advocates for their own health, implementing lifestyle changes before they become symptomatic diseases. 

But patients will only feel comfortable in using digital healthcare services if they are given easy access to their health data and the ability to control how it's shared.

“Another crucial aspect of running a successful medical system is effective data management and storage,” shared Matt Roberts, Global Practice Lead, Healthcare and Life Sciences at Juniper Networks. 

1. Robust privacy measures

In 2023, Meta was hit with a record €1.2bn fine for transferring personal data of EU citizens to the US. In addition, there were 133m healthcare data breaches that year, according to cybersecurity company Huntress. 

These incidents have been widely publicised and spiked fears around data privacy and security, especially with sensitive healthcare information. In order to increase the public’s trust in digital healthcare, they must be assured of the adequate privacy measures put in place by healthcare organisations. The implementation of strong encryption, secure data storage and strict access controls to protect patient information will do this.

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