Andover, MA – Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced its U.S. Future Health Index (FHI) 2019 report, showing that while American healthcare professionals are among the leaders in leveraging digital health records1 (DHRs), the United States falls behind the 15-country average for most other digital technologies examined. Digital health technologies have the potential to reduce healthcare professional workload, curb healthcare professional burnout and enhance their satisfaction, yet many American healthcare professionals are not harnessing the full potential and support of digital health technology in all aspects of their work. The report showed that the use of telehealth and artificial intelligence (AI) are among the largest opportunities for improvement of quality and cost savings in healthcare.
While 84% of healthcare professionals in the U.S. are using DHRs (e.g. Electronic Medical Records or Electronic Health Records), only 46% of U.S. healthcare professionals use telehealth, compared to the 15-country average of 61% and only about 33% use AI-powered solutions in their practice or hospital. Countries like Germany (41%) and China (85%) surpass the U.S. in the use of AI technologies among healthcare professionals, despite the fact that the U.S. has one of the highest spends of AI in healthcare for preliminary diagnosis per capita at $0.06, while China’s spend is $0.002 per capita and Germany’s is $0.03 per capita2. American healthcare professionals cited a lack of interoperability (52%) between record systems as a reason why they do not share health records among their peers inside their healthcare facility, and 57% cited a lack of access to these systems.