The Next Generation of Health Professionals in Health Technology

Until March of 2020, when asked about the role of technology in the health professional’s education, one could largely and confidently share that exposure to and practice within Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) made up the majority of an emerging clinician’s prowess in the health technology space. As the shift towards telehealth technologies, online clinical education, and virtual simulation took place, undergraduate and graduate medical and allied health education was severely disrupted. Students transitioned to learning new modalities while simultaneously attempting to teach them to their patients. While audiovisual materials, mobile apps, video games, integrated simulators, and virtual reality devices had previously entered the clinical playing field, COVID-19 accelerated any and all adoption of digital technologies, bypassing the friction previously met in the consideration of nascent tools. 

Prior to and after the beginning of the pandemic, beginner and introductory informatics courses were a core tenet of curricula across many health professions. Health informatics involves the interdisciplinary study and analysis of data and information for scientific inquiry regarding patient health. It infuses quantitative and qualitative data with meaning across population sectors to derive purposeful impact for health systems and populations. These courses are densely packed with lessons on meaningful use, mobile health applications, and clinical information systems, yet ask any newly-minted clinician to demonstrate examples of digital health tools, and you might be met with a quizzical glance. 

However, aptly using those digital health tools might be a critical component of those clinicians’ jobs, unbeknownst to them. Cardiology is likely collecting data through remote and wearable electrocardiograms. Endocrinology might be providing live feedback to wearable insulin pumps and sensors. And psychiatry is working to objectify the qualitative elements of therapeutic care in order to further substantiate and standardize service provision. All of that data collection must be analyzed and amalgamated in a clinically meaningful and useful way. How to do that? Health education leaves students woefully unsure. 

Immediately after graduation, burgeoning clinicians are thrown into busy practices, seeing dozens of patients per day. In an evolving space, with hundreds of thousands of digital health apps in existence, health professionals must be kept aware of their integration and utility. In a world that’s constantly moving to automate, streamline, and modernize, it’s easy for clinicians to be circumspect in their view of new tools. Yet, it’s exactly why new graduate health professionals need to be able to articulate the value of health technology. Just as virtual reality simulators are meant to augment, not eliminate, student clinical experience, digital health tools are meant to keep the clinician and the patient in the center of all care. By partnering with students and newly-licensed clinicians, digital health tools can keep abreast of the unrolling needs within patient care. Synchronously, health professionals remain informed of new and proliferating tools, ones meant to improve the quality of care delivered, empower patients and their families, and promote informed decision-making.

Brayden Kameg, DNP, PMHNP-BC, a current Headlamp Health user, is the co-owner of Peace of Mind Psychiatry, located in Bridgeville, PA. She is the founding program director of the PMHNP residency program at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and the program coordinator for the PMHNP track at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing.

Dina Veytsman, DNP, PMHNP-BC, is the Medical Affairs Lead at Headlamp Health. She is a private practice clinician and staunch digital mental health tech advocate.