Liquid hospitals: The hospitals of the future?

by Patricia Domínguez, November 11th, 2021

As digitalization continues to gain ground, new hospital models are appearing on the scene. These are aimed at responding to the current challenges by means of innovation and new technologies. Within these models they are paying special attention to patient-centered healthcare, as is noted in the document “The Hospital of the Future,” produced by the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI). This document explains how our hospitals must evolve to respond to these needs; Liquid Hospitals stand out among those models.

What are Liquid Hospitals?

This is a new hospital concept that encompasses both the physical hospital facility and those centers that extend beyond their walls. As mentioned in the article “The liquid hospital, a reality today that brings us nearer to the future,” this model brings clinical care into the actual environment of the patient through multiple technology-based approaches. The purpose is to listen to and involve patients and their families.

The hospital becomes “liquid;” the walls disappear, and it reaches the patient through technology, adapting itself to the patient’s needs and trying to enable the patient to spend as little time as possible inside the hospital, offering him or her a comprehensive evaluation along with personalized and innovative healthcare.

This would be possible, as noted at the BHH Summit 2021, thanks to the use of telemedicine, remote patient monitoring platforms, and home care, which enable the extension of care to the patient in the outpatient environment, involving the patient and the family in the collection of data and management of the disease. At the summit, speakers also pointed out the importance of taking into account the patient’s point of view in order to construct a system that functions for all the involved parties.

Because of that, this model would help improve the healthcare system, optimizing the workflow of the centers and reducing the visits to the hospital. In fact, as remarked on an article from the Infosalus site, experts assure us that the future of healthcare will pass through those liquid hospitals, which can help improve the weaknesses of the current healthcare system, shortening waiting lists and improving medical technology, all by impacting efficiency.

Taking note of this reality, at Persei vivarium we focus on the creation of high-quality data collections for specific diseases based on the clinical information from hospitals, the daily clinical practice of physicians, and the patient’s experience. This process enables the collection of information about the disease from both the inpatient and outpatient environments, making the creation of those liquid hospitals possible.

It is obvious that the COVID-19 pandemic has driven the need for transformation and innovation of the healthcare system to improve its efficiency. Now the objective is to continue working so that this momentum leads to the creation of a useful long-term model for healthcare professionals, the industry, and patients, all hand in hand with technology.

#LiquidHospital #DigitalHealth #mHealth