Patients titrating and administering their own medication? Sounds like some futuristic scene from a sci-fi movie where Doctors no longer exist and patients are in charge of their own healthcare.  But this is actually not so futuristic explains Dr. David Judge, medical director of the Ambulatory Practice of the Future (APF) at Mass General.  Diabetic patients are already successfully self medicating, and David plans to soon pilot similar care modalities for other patient populations such as those with chronic heart disease.

As a featured speaker at yesterday’s MassTLC Executive Summit, an event highlighting innovative technologies and applications and their impact on businesses and consumers today, David detailed how his team is deploying new tools to improve how care is delivered, and at the center of that care are the patients themselves. David’s vision of the patient of the future is a healthier, more informed and empowered patient in control of his/her own health destiny. To enable this vision, the APF is providing patients with tools that enable them to self manage, thereby allowing them to improve their health outcome and quality of life while at the same time allowing David and his care team to focus on spending more time with patients who need their care most.

At the summit, David also highlighted several pilots underway at the APF focused on innovating care delivery for primary care in partnership with the Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology. Fueled in part by the shortage of primary care providers, these projects focus on the exploration of new models of care delivery and are attempt to utilize all members of the care team to train and empower patients to be more proactive managers of their care. David calls this “patient apprenticeship” and the APFs initial findings are that this is a very successful and effective patient-centered care model. He went on to share his insight on the impact of ACOs, payment for value, culture change, informed patients and the increased demand for technologies to enable prevention and proactive disease management on care delivery.

The patient of the future will be here sooner than we expect explained David, as by 2020 he predicts expert patients will manage 95% of their preventive and chronic care. The patient of the future will be a healthier, more informed and empowered patient in control of his/her own health destiny.

To learn more about David Judge and his work at the Ambulatory Practice of the Future, visit http://ow.ly/dRj6m