Home Is Where the Healthcare Is
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| Photo by Magic Mind on Unsplash |
There are several signs that the direction of change is pointing toward home. The drugstore chain CVS is planning a move that could trigger the resurgence of the medical home visit. Amazon is expanding its healthcare presence by acquiring One Medical, a telehealth business. Meanwhile, home births are on the rise since the pandemic started, which has had implications stretching as far as AirBnBs being used as birthing sites. Another example is the startup called Love, a health DAO, which intends to put home remedies through R&D. From childbirth to pet care, it is feasible that more and more of the wellness needs of the typical household will take place at home in the future.
Pet Care at Home
A startup called The Vets offers regular checkups, vaccinations, and lab work at home through a fleet of mobile veterinarians. Petfolk has raised $40 million to provide a new breed of veterinary care that involves virtual visits. In the future, sensors connected to smart appliances like vacuums may be able to detect abnormal eating patterns or vitals in pets, alerting owners and vets to potential health problems.
Rehabilitation at Home
It could become the norm for physical therapy rehab following injury or surgery to be conducted mostly at home. A study using smart phones found at-home cardiac recovery was safe. Converging trends of smart homes and virtual reality (VR) could make the home more suitable for recovery. Interactive technology might enhance the experience and make it even safer than hospital recovery, and a study found VR was effective as a supplemental pain reliever.
Mental Health at Home
Mental health has made great strides in telehealth. Apps and virtual counseling are having effective results. Is there potential for home-based mental health care becoming more intertwined with the physical environment, perhaps using ambient stimuli that promotes relaxation and rest? The apps and gadgets that already exist could be designed to work with smart home control systems to maintain emotional well-being.
Self-Care at Home
Aside from the devastating deaths and disabilities, the pandemic has been a stressful experience that has highlighted the importance of self-care. In the coming years, self-care services are likely to provide invaluable relief to the millions who have suffered from the psychological impacts of this historic event. Demographics is another driver: as the population ages, there could be large demand for cosmetic treatments at home. Whether the goal is to relax, detox, beauty, or achieve anti-aging results, opportunities for on-demand at home self-care seem imminent.
Pediatrics at Home
The pandemic has highlighted healthcare inequities across society and awakened a desire to solve them. Childhood checkups are frequent and important in the first years of life so making them conveniently occur in the home seems like a no-brainer. And, it makes sense to assume that keeping sick children out of doctor’s office waiting rooms would go a long way to limit contagion. The revival of house calls is also a powerful acknowledgment of the realities of working parents with expectations for 24/7 support.
Future Implications
There are numerous implications of shifting healthcare resources and services into the home. How will health insurance providers respond? Or will they be edged out by retail platforms facilitating direct interaction between providers and patients?
In terms of actual housing, will there be real estate reverberations? Some short-term rentals could become specifically outfitted for certain procedures or recoveries, morphing from real estate into health tourism. Having a healthcare-ready home might become an important selling point that home remodeling contractors may cash in on the near future.
It's possible that technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will help in-home caregivers accomplish basic healthcare procedures. In complicated cases, doctors could control robotic instruments remotely to perform minor procedures. These types of technologies might help the elderly remain in their homes to age in place as long as possible, too.
An important consideration is the human needs at the core of these examples, such as home birth. In addition to the midwives, professional birth assistants, birthing centers and short-term rentals that could be involved, what about food delivery, child care, and cleaning service providers? There are numerous new channels of value transfer in a scenario where a growing share of births occurs in homes rather than hospitals.
I’ve written a bit about the future of the home, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to explore how healthcare is changing home spaces. It appears this is a quickly maturing development, catalyzed by the pandemic, which has the potential to shape the future in a positive direction.
