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How to Find the Right Health Care Plan

digital transformation plan for health and care

Your health is more important than anything else. A healthy person can keep earning money so always put your health ahead of your financial needs. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re too young to consider your health care needs. All adults need a good healthcare package so take time before committing to a healthcare insurance plan. There are four levels of insurance plan available to you – Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum, and there are lots of other things to consider before you decide on your insurance package. Don’t forget that you will be paying a monthly fee even if you don’t need medical help.

Metal Levels

Typically, the insurance plan’s monthly amount will increase as you go from Bronze up to Platinum but the amount you have to pay for treatment decreases. For example, you might be asked to pay 40% of the costs with the insurance firm covering the other 60% if you opt for Bronze, while Silver customers will find perhaps as much as 70% covered by the insurance company. If you’d like to make sure you’re not surprised by a major bill, opt for the Platinum package as you’ll normally pay something like 10% of the medical bill.

What Is the Total Cost?

Don’t just look at the monthly premium when choosing an insurance package as there may be a deductible to pay. This amount is paid whenever you need the insurance. And consider what the insurance package is covering before committing to it. Does it pay for some of your regular check-ups? What about disease management programs? Are they covered by the insurance? You should also check if preventive services like shots and screening tests are available to you at no extra cost.

Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO)

Some plans offer low monthly costs but come with restrictions. For example, you might opt for an EPO plan. That’s an Exclusive Provider Organization plan in which you’re only able to use doctors and specialists from hospitals within the plan’s network. Of course, in an emergency, you can go wherever you need to but apart from that, you’re restricted which might not work for you if you travel a lot and need medical aid in various places.

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

HMOs normally offer lower costs than other similar services but they have a more restrictive provider network. You will also need to coordinate your health care through your primary care physician which could slow down the process of being seen because you’ll need a referral, except in the case of an emergency. For example, if you get a rash on your skin, you’ll have to see your primary care physician before being referred to a dermatologist.

Preferred Provider Organization (PPO)

This subscription-based medical care arrangement offers more flexibility than HMOs as there are fewer restrictions on visits to specialists outside their network. You won’t need to see a PCP before seeing a specialist which will save you time, although premiums are normally higher, and there’s normally a deductible to pay. Before committing to either an HMO or PPO consider your medical needs above the costs. If buying insurance for yourself rather than taking it through your employer, remember that you might be eligible for tax subsidies.

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Digital transformation

From a buzzword to an imperative for health systems.

Chuck Appleby

United States

Editor-in-chief

Chuck Appleby is editor-in-chief at Scottsdale Institute, where he has been involved in writing, communications, and the publication of thought leadership content for nearly 30 years. He has 34 years of experience in the health care industry as a journalist, writer, and media relations and marketing communications consultant. Focusing on health care and IT, he has written and consulted for some of the most prominent health care experts and visionaries in the country and a virtual who’s who of corporate health care clients.

[email protected]

John Hendricks

Scottsdale Institute

John Hendricks is an innovative senior IT professional with more than 25 years of diversified experience. In his role at the Scottsdale Institute, Hendricks is responsible for enabling the many programs and events that foster thought leadership across all members, partners, and sponsors. Before joining the Scottsdale Institute, he had a number of roles, including consulting and being the chief technology officer at UnityPoint Health in Des Moines, Iowa. He holds bachelor and master degrees in mathematics from John Carroll University, Iowa.

[email protected]

Janice Wurz

Janice Wurz admits to leadership career of over 30 years in health care, information systems, and public relations. Her proven competence in strategic planning, interoperability, analytics, population health/accountable care organizations (ACOs), patient and clinical engagement, physician integration, change management, and program implementation was honed across operational and consulting health care IT roles. At Scottsdale Institute, she works with over 60 of the nation’s top health systems to support health care transformation through IT.

[email protected]

Chris Shudes

Chris Shudes, Principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP, is Deloitte’s Healthcare Digital Transformation leader and manages our Healthcare Technology Strategy Practice. He has helped shape Deloitte’s Future of Health technology perspective and has authored several technology disruption eminence pieces. He has over 24 years in shaping and delivering large-scale digital transformation programs, innovating operating models, digital architectures, shared services, cloud strategy, and providing executive leadership to large-scale IT change programs. He has extensive experience across the health care industry including national health provider systems, regional and community systems, AMCs, ASCs, and commercial payers.

Christine Chang

Manager | Deloitte Services LP

Christine Chang, MPH, is a research manager with the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, DeloitteServices LP. She conducts primary and secondary research and analysis on emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities within the health care system. She supports Deloitte’s Life Sciences &Health Care practice across all sectors and has written on topics including innovation, value-based care, and emerging technologies.

Maulesh Shukla

Executive Manager | Deloitte Center for Health Solutions| Deloitte Services LP

Maulesh Shukla, Deloitte Services LP, is an executive manager with the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. For the past fifteen years, his research has covered a wide range of topics in the realm of health plans, as well as hospital and health systems. His recent research has focused on the future of health, health equity, and health care financial transformation. He holds an MBA from IBS, Hyderabad, India.

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The COVID-19 pandemic was an accelerator of shifting consumer preferences and care-delivery innovation. See how, by embracing a digital mindset, health systems can transform their relationship with consumers.

Executive summary

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the convergence of several trends in the health care industry, particularly consumers prioritizing convenience and access to care. Leading health systems view digital transformation as a way to become more consumer-friendly while simultaneously changing their operations, culture, and use of technology.

The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions collaborated with the Scottsdale Institute to better understand how health systems are using digital to transform health care. To understand the digital transformation journey of health systems, we engaged Scottsdale Institute members in multipronged research: We conducted a survey of technology executives of 25 health systems, interviewed five health system technology leaders, and facilitated a moderated panel discussion of technology leaders from three health systems. We found that:

Our recent health care consumer survey findings show that consumers are increasingly exercising agency, engagement, and control over most decisions about their health and well-being. 1 To meet consumers where they are, health systems should consider accelerating their digital transformation efforts by establishing a governance model, creating a digital culture, recruiting and retaining the right talent, and measuring the success of their initiatives.

Introduction

Over the past two decades, many hospitals and health systems adopted digital technologies in their various functional areas. In many cases, however, they took a piecemeal approach to numerous initiatives—from installing electronic health record (EHR) systems to building apps to trying disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)—while remaining largely focused on the same business and customer models. 2

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered this status quo for the health care industry. Virtual health and care delivered in the home became the model of not only necessity but also preference. But this change was not as sudden as it might look. The pandemic was an accelerator of several trends, including shifting consumer preferences, rapidly evolving technologies, newer talent models, and clinical innovation. In the face of these trends, as hospitals and health systems work toward adapting their businesses, a well-defined approach toward digital technologies will likely be at the core of this transformation strategy.

Research methodology

The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions collaborated with the Scottsdale Institute to better understand how health systems are using digital transformation to help future-proof their organizations. We conducted a multipronged research project, engaging with large- and mid-sized health system members of the Scottsdale Institute between May and July 2021 that included:

Key research findings

Health systems consider digital capabilities a path to fundamentally transform their relationship with consumers.

Health systems acknowledge the acceleration in consumer agency and activation in the last few years. 3 As consumers increasingly take charge of their health decisions, health systems are aligning digital investments to their overall business strategy—a strategy focused on consumers, according to roundtable panelists and interviewees. Almost all our survey respondents (92%) noted that better consumer satisfaction and engagement are the top outcomes their organizations want to achieve from digital transformation, followed by improved care quality (56%). Closely aligned to the top outcomes, functions receiving most digital investments today are patient experience (88%), IT/cyber (80%), and clinical care delivery (68%) (figure 1).

Health system interviewees likewise discussed taking a “consumer-centric” approach, focusing their digital investments on improving patient experiences and newer forms of care delivery, especially since the onset of the pandemic. This is consistent with our recent research on opportunities for consumer-facing technologies in health systems to build a better health care experience. As one of the interviewees said, “With COVID-19, it became necessary to accelerate consumer-facing technologies, and now there’s no looking back.”

As health care organizations transform digitally, cybersecurity is paramount

Threats to cybersecurity are one of the biggest challenges health systems have faced amid rapid digitalization in the last few years. Since the onset of the pandemic, health care facilities have been among the top targets for ransomware attacks and will likely continue due to the large amount of personal-sensitive data. 4

As consumers become the center of digital transformation efforts, privacy and security of patient information are among the top digital priorities for health systems. In our survey, cybersecurity was among the top three investment priorities today and also in the next 3 years. Interviewees also discussed how their cybersecurity units worked hand in hand with digital transformation teams to ensure greater transparency and ownership. Without a matched focus on cyber, health systems open themselves to additional risks as they increase digital activities.

Figure 1. Consumer engagement is a top outcome and digital investment priority

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In addition, taking a nonconventional approach toward user experience, akin to consumer technology companies, was a recurring theme for interviewees and roundtable panelists. For example, one of the interviewees mentioned how digital technology is aiding more real-time feedback from patients, and they do not have to wait for months to get results from regulatory reporting (e.g., HCAHPS survey). This quick feedback obviously helps resolve consumer issues much more rapidly than previous nondigital solutions. Similarly, one of the panelists discussed how their organization is taking a “design-thinking approach to reimagine all their processes—both clinical and nonclinical.” Using this approach, they initiate planning with the starting points for different consumers and how they might access their health care services.

“A patient’s journey is not just in the hospital. There is a “before” and an “after” (or a “not at all”) and what we need to do is be able to stitch that together, making sure we are caring and understanding the context and then where we can leverage those digital tools to be there for them.”

—Chief digital officer, large regional health system

We also asked our survey respondents how they planned to achieve the transformation—what technologies they were investing in now and what they planned for the next few years to transform their business and customer models. Respondents reported investments in insights and analytics (76%), virtual health services (68%), and cloud (56%) as top priorities today. Health system interviewees corroborated these are top investment priorities. They said their focus is on building unified data and business intelligence (BI) capabilities. This forms a strong base for real-time business analytics, predictive analytics, and AI. One interviewee noted they need to focus on the entire technology spectrum, not just on next-in-class technologies. For them, better communication technologies for their call centers are just as important an investment as AI pilots.

Atrium Health: Patient journey beyond hospital visits

For Atrium Health, a North Carolina-based integrated health system, the pandemic acted as a catalyst for their digital transformation efforts. As our roundtable panelist Omer Awan, chief data and digital officer at Atrium Health, put it, “We have been working on digital efforts for a while, but it wasn't until the beginning of last year that we really embarked upon a multiyear digital acceleration.”

Atrium Health, like many health systems, ramped up its virtual health capabilities last year owing to the pandemic. Mr. Awan said that as the impact of the pandemic tapers off, one of the priorities for Atrium would be to not lose momentum toward virtual health and improve focus on better patient and caregiver experiences. He discussed how Atrium looks at virtual health holistically, with well-being, remote monitoring, and care management being as important as virtual visits. To ensure a better patient and caregiver experience, Atrium is deploying technologies such as chatbots to better understand consumer expectations.

Atrium is layering predictive analytics and AI at several patient touchpoints to understand and preempt consumer needs. As Mr. Awan notes, “We still haven't seen the best of AI and there's so much potential” to transform user experience and care delivery.

While the digital transformation journey is long, health systems are focusing on interim milestones to show value

Digital transformation means something different to every health system, every stakeholder. However, most survey respondents and interviewees agree that it is more than just transferring paper processes to a digital environment. Digital transformation is a new way to deliver care, improve processes, and meet the well-being needs of consumers. Deloitte defines digital transformation as the use of digital technologies to radically improve the performance or reach of an organization. In a digitally transformed business, digital technologies enable improved processes, engaged talent, and new business models. This can take significant time and can expect scrutiny of efforts. It therefore requires a thoughtful approach to ensure alignment with end goals while also demonstrating value along the way.

“Four years ago, digital transformation made it onto our health system strategy map. Then, I would have said, [we would be completely integrated] 5 years from where we started. But today, realizing the challenge of the work, I don’t know the way we will look 5 years from now. Lots of work to do, so can’t say [how long digital transformation will take].”

—Senior vice president, a large integrated health system

While survey respondents were at different stages in the digital transformation journey, none of them said they were close to an ideal digital state. Most survey respondents (60%) said their organizations were no more than midway through their digital transformation journey. Slightly more than half of respondents said they have 3 or more years left until completing their digital transformation. In addition, 20% are still in planning stages and another 40% may not have a well-defined strategy (figure 2).

Expansion of opportunities for digital transformation has made the journey longer than they had initially expected, according to some health system interviewees. As these health systems progress further into their longer-term strategies, they are realizing that they are still at the beginning of their digital transformation journey, and that this journey is not just about digital technologies but about transforming health care as a whole. They also discussed a need to create frequent checkpoints to measure the value of the initiatives—rather than waiting until the completion of the initiatives to measure ROI—because it is such a lengthy journey. Organizations should consider setting goals for specific milestones at different stages to ensure value at various stages and check whether they are on course for end objectives.

Figure 2. Surveyed health systems are at various stages of their digital transformation journey

University of Wisconsin Health (UWH): Digital as the DNA of the organizational strategy

UWH, one of the top academic medical centers in the country, has been at the forefront of integrating digital into their organizational strategy over the last few years. “Digital strategy is not and should not be separate from the organizational strategy,” declared Cherodeep Goswami, system vice president and chief information officer at UWH, kicking off the roundtable. As a colead of the digital program, one of his biggest priorities is to convert his organization from “doing digital” to “being digital.” In that vein, he identified key areas where digital is enabling a broader organizational transformation:

Digital is helping UWH transform itself organizationally, and as Mr. Goswami puts it, “Digital should be the building DNA of every organization’s broader transformation efforts.”

Talent, data, and appropriate KPIs are challenges to overcome, in addition to budget

Health care leaders face several challenges on their transformation journey. Data quality and access and talent were major barriers to digital transformation for survey respondents (figure 3). Budget is also important. Survey respondents, interviewees, and panelists shared how they are addressing these challenges.

Figure 3. Data, talent, and budget are among top barriers to overcome

“When you are tracking everything, you are tracking nothing. We are trying to reduce that. The first question we have is, ‘How does this attach to the KPIs we have in the organization?’ The decision is made by the highest level of the organization.”

—Senior vice president, integrated experience, a large faith-based health system

An executive champion is key to digital transformation success

According to survey respondents, leadership (80%) and management of implementation (68%) are accelerators of digital transformation (figure 4). Interviewees underscored the importance that organizational leadership understands and supports digital transformation efforts and follows through with appropriate resources, staffing, and decision-making authority. This allows digital transformation leaders to think outside the box, speed up product development cycles, and change organizational culture around digital.

“C-level support is really important. We have to be partners with other teams but having a separate entity (specific governance for digital transformation) was a key to success.”

Figure 4. Leadership and managing change are key accelerators of digital transformation

SCL Health: Governance as the key to digital acceleration

Faith-based SCL Health has been providing health care services to communities in Colorado, Montana, and Kansas for several decades now. Amid trends such as consumerism and newer competition from other industries, “it is time to reimagine the services we provide, and also reposition our organization … and digital transformation is the biggest enabler in achieving this,” according to roundtable panelist Craig Richardville, SVP and chief information and digital officer, SCL Health.

When Mr. Richardville joined SCL Health 2 years ago, one of his first priorities was to align the IT and digital services (DS) units into one—ITDS. He created an ITDS leadership team that owns all ITDS initiatives across the organization and partners with functional leaders such as the chief medical officer and chief marketing officer on the governance committee. This has helped accelerate planning and implementation of diverse ITDS efforts.

Leadership and governance are crucial to all digital transformation initiatives and, as Mr. Richardville said, “We have the right people sitting in the right (ITDS) seats and this really helped transform the whole organization.”

Health systems recognize that digital transformation is essential to improving health care and strengthening customer relationships. It is more than just investments in technology—it results in changes in organizational culture and employee engagement; it is an enterprise investment that requires enterprisewide participation. To move forward digitally, many leading health systems are embracing six key principles:

The impact of digital transformation will be felt across all aspects of health care, helping enable easier access to care, improving quality, and decreasing the cost of care. Consumers can connect quickly and conveniently with their preferred provider. In addition to stronger consumer relationships, digital transformation can also help improve operational and financial efficiencies and bring health systems’ long-term strategies into reality.

Let’s make this work.

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Acknowledgements

Project team : The authors would like to thank Madhushree Wagh who assisted in designing the survey tool and the interview guide, interpreting the survey data and analyzing interview findings, and writing sections of the report. Wendy Gerhardt provided invaluable guidance on shaping the project, and helped editing and reviewing the paper.

The authors would also like to thank Nick Wong , Stacy Tucker , Courtney Olson , Laura DeSimio , Zion Bereket , and the many others who contributed to the success of this project.

This study would not have been possible without the participants who graciously agreed to take part in the survey, interviews, and the panel discussion. We thank them for being generous with their time and insights.

Cover image by: Kevin Weier

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Digital Transformation in Healthcare Overview

Digital Transformation in...

Use Cases of Digital Healthcare Solutions

Benefits of digital transformation in healthcare, stoppers for digital transformation in healthcare, key points of digital transformation acceleration in healthcare, forthcoming digital trends in healthcare industry, final thoughts.

Digital Transformation in Healthcare statistics

Digital transformation has a huge impact on the performance of nearly all industries, and healthcare is not an exception. Nowadays, it’s integral for the healthcare industry to provide better patient care digitally no matter where they are. Generally speaking, digital transformation in the healthcare market is all about adopting innovative technologies that are aimed at improving work efficiency in hospitals as well as taking patient care to a whole new level.

In fact, more and more different opportunities appear today in the branch of digital transformation in the healthcare industry and in diagnostics.

Why digital healthcare is important, what benefits it can bring for the health industry and its consumers, and what future digital trends should we expect there? In this article, we’ll get it covered.

But before we proceed, let’s define what exactly digitalization in the medical field means.

Digital transformation in healthcare is a completely new way of delivering care while ameliorating the internal hospital processes and, most importantly, meeting all needs of patients through embracing and implementing advanced technologies. It’s the active use of technologies to bring value to people and healthcare organizations to maximize benefits.

The research by Deloitte demonstrated that around 92% of healthcare units expect to achieve better performance from the patient-centric business development model.

healthcare industry market development prognosis

Therefore, the digital healthcare transformation has forced radical changes in medical services. So, let’s now review the healthcare business transformation and take a closer look at real examples of digital transformation in healthcare.

So, digital transformation in healthcare makes a detailed overview of how the medical units diagnose, monitor, and manage patient health. Its main goal is to implement innovative healthcare IT solutions to optimize the major workflow processes and compliances, and improve patient service while reducing costs.

For this purpose, let’s now take a look at how digital healthcare is already used in medicine.

1. Automation

Nothing is more powerful than automation for the healthcare industry. It’s worth noting that its implementation is very beneficial for drug manufacturers and especially for production safety. Technologies enable very accurate and detailed examination of materials. Automation algorithms can come in handy for microbiological studies where they can boost the efficiency of studies, analyze and assess specimens while improving the outcome of the laboratory research.

And it goes without saying that its advantages for healthcare services are immense. Automation enables employees to minimize paperwork while reducing human error and maximizing work productivity across departments.

For doctors, it means having more time at work they can spend on communicating with patients and providing even better and more personalized care. Also, automation enables us to take care of larger groups of patients with similar needs and save time on an individualized approach. Those patients can also receive automated appointment reminders that will minimize no-shows at hospitals.

2. Connected Ambulance

A connected ambulance serves as an assistant to healthcare providers as it collects and transfers all vital patient data that can be gathered through wearables, sensors, and HD cameras, and sends it to the hospital while the patient is being transported to the required department.

Even before the patient arrives at the hospital, doctors will already have all the required data that will help them provide the needed procedures faster and more effectively without losing priceless time. In some particular cases, doctors can also guide paramedics through certain procedures with the help of connected ambulance technology.

3. On-Demand Healthcare Solutions

During the past decade, society has become more mobile, which makes more and more organizations keep abreast of cutting-edge technologies, especially those from the healthcare field. Instead of tethering themselves to one company, professionals become more eager to work for multiple medical facilities at a time.

For this purpose, the Nomad Health company has launched a platform that links doctors directly with the healthcare units for short-term work.

It enables physicians to provide the so-called “on-demand” medical services to the patients, and only if it matches their expertise, experience, and working schedule. Thus, doctors become more flexible in offering medical services, and can effectively adapt to the patient’s evolving needs.

4. Telemedicine & Virtual Visits

One of the most notable changes in healthcare is the growth of virtual doctor visits . It enables meeting the specialists at the most comfortable time and from nearly anywhere, which is much more time and cost-efficient rather than an in-person hospital visit.

Based on the research, around 83% of surveyed patients are ready to use telemedicine, which has become even more popular after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020.

This digital transformation strategy has been already used in the Brigham Health hospital network (Massachusetts, USA), where the patients can use virtual visits on a regular basis.

They can schedule appointments, communicate with doctors via video chats using phones or PCs, receive detailed prescriptions in their emails, and more.

Due to the Brigham Health recent survey, more than 74% of patients feel the virtual visits positively impacted their interaction with their doctors and healthcare institutions as well.

5. Patient Portals

Another great trend in the transformation healthcare solutions feature is creating specific healthcare platforms where the patients can:

And that’s only a few options available on the healthcare platforms for patients. At the same time, this system enables quicker and more convenient access to electronic health records and significantly reduces the burden for the medical staff.

A great example of patient portal technology use is the FollowMyHealth system. It covers the most essential features we’ve already introduced above and also can be used by the doctors of general medicine and those of more specific healthcare areas.

However, this digital innovation in healthcare is still in its early stages of use. According to the patient surveys, over 40% of participants say that these systems are still too confusing, and their interface features are difficult to interpret and use.

6. Health Wearables

At present, people have become more conscious about their health: they’re not visiting a doctor when they get sick, instead, they’re always looking for effective yet convenient ways to track their health metrics.

Basically, that was the main reason why we’ve seen a tremendous increase in the sales of wearable medical devices. The digital transformation in healthcare enables tracking the various health metrics and providing accurate health data in real-time. Some of the common types of health devices include:

One of the most popular wearables introduced on the device market is Apple Watch. The smartwatch was first released on September 9, 2014, and so far can track heart rate and exercise, reminders about drinking water or washing hands, used for recording body temperature, weight, and periods. This data, in turn, can be later used by doctors for analyzing health metrics, diagnosis, and more.

7. Disease History Analysis

Nowadays there are more and more tools that analyze a patient's disease history in order to give doctors recommendations about treatment outcomes. An example of such a solution is the company BostonGene. The BostonGene's algorithm conducts a profound analysis of a patient's previous conditions and offers a personalized treatment plan that would potentially deem the best results.

In fact, medical digital transformation provides plenty of benefits for all the patients involved, as well as the medical institutions they’re been used by.

With these innovations used, physicians and hospitals can speed up their workflow, get more accurate patient data and health metrics, and build up a more effective treatment in a shorter time. All these factors can significantly impact the outcome, of course, for the better.

After you know the most popular and up-to-date technologies and trends implemented nowadays, it’s time to briefly review what benefits they can bring to the healthcare enterprises and their patients correspondingly.

benefits of digital healthcare transformation

Advantages of Digital Transformation for Healthcare Organizations

So, what profits can medical institutions get from healthcare digital strategy transformation?

Advantages of Digital Transformation for Patients

And what patients can get with digital solutions in healthcare implementation?

As you can see, there are plenty of benefits digital healthcare solutions can bring to both healthcare providers and their clients. The only question is when the industry will be able to make the most of healthcare digital transformation services .

Finally, since information technology in hospitals is only starting to evolve, in upcoming decades we’ll probably see even more tech adoptions into healthcare.

Despite the pretty rapid digital transformation in medicine, there are still some stoppers that hold the process back at the moment. The industry still cannot fully embrace the new technologies so let’s take a closer look at the reason why digitization happens more slowly in healthcare.

First of all, it’s important to understand that adoption of technologies is always related to cybersecurity issues. In order to ensure the complete safety of patient data and prevent any data leakage, it’s crucial to have cybersecurity specialists. Today, there is a significant shortage of professionals in healthcare with similar qualifications. This specialized workforce shortage can lead to increased risks and system vulnerabilities.

In addition to the lack of people who are going to implement digital innovation on the quality level, you should also understand that the majority of healthcare providers still rely on their legacy systems which are also related to a wide range of security concerns. Many institutions are not willing to update those systems and it’s very hard to maintain them even though they perform all the critical functions. Therefore, they postpone the technology transformation and slow down the process of software adoption.

Another major challenge that hinders organizations on their digital transformation journey is related to industry-specific regulations including HIPAA. While implementing the new technology, healthcare institutions have to ensure privacy and meet all the security requirements. It can make the process more time- and budget-consuming as it also requires staff training.

Therefore, while knowing those bottlenecks in the healthcare industry, it’s going to be easier to significantly ameliorate the digitization efforts of all healthcare organizations.

Currently, medical centers, and huge medical enterprises need to review their business strategies and include the new opportunities and innovative solutions provided by digital transformation in healthcare. So, let’s now briefly review the latest trends that IT for hospitals offers:

These are only a few of the major trends in digital healthcare for the next decade. However, implementing these solutions to medical enterprises can significantly enhance the entire industry’s performance!

To sum up, digital healthcare technologies are still in their early stages of development but have already shown their perspectives and proven their efficiency.

With the automated transformations healthcare implements, it becomes possible to enhance the performance of healthcare units, improve the productivity of the medical staff and deliver advanced services to the final consumers – its patients.

The use of innovative solutions and digital technologies in healthcare opens up new opportunities for enhancing this industry in the upcoming years, and shaping a modern, more effective, and automated health service system.

Our team, at Intellectsoft, knows how essential it is to follow and implement the latest digital healthcare trends for the medical units. Thus, we try our best to deliver the most powerful tech solutions based on the best frameworks that exactly fit the needs and goals of any organization and its workforce.

For more than 14 years, we deliver quality digital transformation for entreprise across different industries as well as in the healthcare sector and insurance digital transformation. Are you looking for the best team to bring your new healthcare project into reality?

Talk to our experts now and uncover how your organization can start benefiting from the digital transformation in healthcare today.

How digital transforming medicine?

Modern technologies have an immense impact on all the spheres of our lives and make them significantly better. Speaking of the ways technologies change medicine , there are so many aspects of healthcare that can be improved by implementing the latest tech solutions. First and foremost, they enable medical care providers to offer patient service of top-notch quality. From now on, patients are connected with doctors around the clock and telemedicine allows them to receive the required care even remotely and save time.

Respectively, doctors can also save their working time spent on one patient and take care of more people during the day. In addition, all administrative tasks can become more simple and more transparent with the relevant software. Technologies can facilitate the budgeting and inventory processes in the hospital, automate the manual processes in the reception and HR departments, reduce the paperwork, improve accuracy, and so much more.

What are the top digital technologies to implement in a hospital?

Nowadays, the number of advanced digital technologies is growing every day. The Healthcare industry is also undergoing digital transformation and there are plenty of evolving solutions that are meant to make patient care better and the administrative processes more simple for a hospital.

However, if you are just about to start your digital transformation journey and don’t know what software has the first priority, here are a few pieces of advice. One of the most essential solutions will be an ERP system for hospitals as it enables to boost efficiency through minimized paperwork and automation. Another good option will be implementing a hospital management system as it also contains plenty of features that will be helpful for your organization.

Healthcare software development: industry guide for 2023, online pharmacy app development: key features to make you stand out from competitors, reasons to implement machine learning in healthcare, how to improve hospital management with healthcare appointment scheduling software, medication tracking software: features, benefits and more, corporate wellness software development: basics to explore.

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Digital Transformation in Healthcare in 2023: 7 Key Trends

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Stay up to date with the latest digital trends.

As a healthcare business, you probably know that keeping up with digital transformation in healthcare can feel overwhelming.

Deciding which emerging technologies are worth investing in and getting your team on board with change is often the hardest part.

Look, adapting to the digital era requires a shift towards a flexible and risk-taking mindset.

It means letting go of outdated business processes and trusting that disruption will yield big results. Before we dive deeper into this topic, a quick recap.

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Digital transformation in healthcare is the positive impact of technology in healthcare.

Here's why: Telemedicine, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled medical devices, and blockchain electronic health records are just a few concrete examples of digital transformation in healthcare which are completely reshaping how we interact with health professionals, how our data is shared among providers and how decisions are made about our treatment plans and health outcomes.

Innovation is the name of the game here, with the main goal of streamlining physicians’ work, optimizing systems, improving patient outcomes, reducing human error, and lowering costs through amazing web and mobile experiences .

Unfortunately, the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries have lagged behind when it comes to implementing digital strategies . Yes, you read that right!

In fact, in a recent survey , only seven percent of healthcare and pharmaceutical companies said they had gone digital, compared to 15 percent of companies in other industries.

Despite that, the U.S. healthcare market is enormous; with the national health spending projected to reach $5.7 trillion by 2026 . There’s still time for you to get well-versed in digital technology and use it to bring in more business. But in order to transform your standard practice into a thriving, digital machine in 2023, you first need a comprehensive picture of the modern healthcare landscape.

Thanks to technology, patients get better treatment with virtual reality tools, wearable medical devices, telehealth, and 5G mobile technology. Doctors, on the other hand, can streamline their workflows using artificial intelligence-powered systems.

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Here’s a better look at the state of digital transformation in healthcare in 2023:

1) The rise of on-demand healthcare (why patients want healthcare on their own schedule)

When you think of ‘on-demand,’ you think of consumers who want things at their own convenience, on their own time, and wherever they happen to be. The healthcare industry is entering the era of digital innovation, as patients seek on-demand healthcare because of their busy schedules. Mobile is especially important when considering content marketing.

People have simply become far more mobile in the past decade. Mobility is the name of the game, and recent statistics show that more than 50% of all web browsing in the world occurs on mobile devices as of 2018 (to be exact, 52%).

One of the first rules of content marketing is that you must identify where your targeted consumers gather and reach them on those platforms, i.e. mobile. That’s not surprising given that 77 percent of U.S. residents own a smartphone . On top of that, the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019.

Factor in that more than four billion people globally are on the Internet and you can start to see the possibilities that digital transformation in healthcare offer.

Man wearing smart watch while operating corresponding mobile app.

According to DMN3 , consumers are going online to obtain medical information for the following reasons:

But on-demand healthcare is also driven by the growth of the ‘gig’ economy, in which freelance professionals in various industries hire themselves out per job or ‘gig,’ instead of tethering themselves to one company.

Companies such as Nomad Health – an online marketplace that links doctors directly with medical facilities for short-term work – are making it easier for physicians to provide on-demand healthcare to clients in specific circumstances that match their talents, expertise, and schedule. In other words, doctors themselves become on-demand healthcare providers to better meet the changing needs of their patients, another benefit of digital transformation in the healthcare industry.

2) The importance of big data in healthcare

Big data aggregates information about a business through formats such as social media, ecommerce, online transactions, and financial transactions, and identifies patterns and trends for future use.

For the healthcare industry, big data can provide several important benefits , including:

Flowchart of data from smart watch, mobile, and tablet going to cloud

With these benefits in mind, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies should invest in organizing their data. That requires an investment in analytics experts who can crunch the data to not only identify areas of weakness, but to also help companies better understand their market.

For example, if you’re in the pharmaceutical industry, you probably understand that marketing dynamics are constantly shifting. In fact, drugmakers believe that the biggest advantage of big data is how it helps them understand the market . And with that understanding, they can determine product iteration and product budgets based on existing and future demand.

With a better grasp of the market, your healthcare marketing and sales teams will have an easier time identifying your ideal consumer. And a big part of that is creating a customer persona , which compiles demographic information on what your prospects want and need, and the platforms where you can reach them.

3) Treating patients with virtual reality

Ten years ago, telling people you could reduce their pain with a device similar to a video game would have garnered a lot of blank stares. In 2018, however, Virtual Reality (VR) is the pièce de résistance of digital transformation in healthcare. Its myriad of applications are profoundly changing the way patients are being treated.

Take pain management for instance. Up until recently, doctors were handing out opioids prescriptions like candy. Migraines? Postoperative pain? Here’s some OxyContin, Vicodin, or Percocet. As a result, the country is currently facing the worst drug crisis in American history, representing an economic burden of $78.5 billion a year .

Here’s the thing: millions of people are still struggling with chronic pain. According to the CDC, 50 million of U.S. adults had chronic pain in 2016. For them, VR is a safer, more efficient alternative to drugs . VR technology is being used not only to treat pain, but everything from anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder, and stroke.

And that’s just a fraction of VR’s proven capabilities in the medical field. Other uses include, doctors and residents using virtual-reality simulations to hone their skills or to plan complicated surgeries. VR headsets could also motivate wearers to exercise and help children with autism learn how to navigate the world.

From startups to pharma giants, everyone is betting on VR and there are numbers to back them up. The global virtual and augmented reality in healthcare market is expected to reach $5.1 billion by 2025 . If you’re a healthcare company planning your digital marketing strategy , you should highly consider investing this technology.

VR is a powerful communication channel that would allow you, among other things, to get a better sense of your customers’ needs and virtually engage them with your products or services .

4) The growth of wearable medical devices

Another trend of the digital transformation in healthcare is companies collecting their own health data from medical devices, including wearable technology.

In the past, most patients were satisfied with undergoing a physical once a year, and only checking in with their doctors when something went wrong. But in the digital age, patients are focusing on prevention and maintenance, and demanding information about their health more frequently.

As a result, healthcare companies are being proactive by investing in wearable technology devices that can provide up-to-date monitoring of high-risk patients to determine the likelihood of a major health event. According to a recent report, the wearable medical device market is expected to reach more than $27 million by 2023, a spectacular jump from almost $8 million in 2017.

Some of the most common of these devices include:

Apple smartwatch showing heartbeat rate on screen

Other benefits for healthcare companies who invest in these products:

Furthermore, wearable technology can also help healthcare companies save money. One study found that health apps and wearables for preventative care could save the U.S. healthcare system close to $7 billion per year.

5) Predictive healthcare

Earlier, we touched on how big data could provide healthcare companies with predictive analysis about admission rates and help them properly staff their facilities. But another factor supporting the digital transformation in healthcare is predicting what illnesses and diseases will become major problems in the near future.

Information aggregated through Big Data and other marketing sources can help healthcare companies develop healthy lifestyle recommendations for their patients.

For example, you could hire an analyst to analyze keyword activity across social media channels and on major search engines to determine the most common searches for medical conditions , illnesses, and general health. The analyst could then develop a predictive model that would anticipate where and when the next big health scare will occur, and how your company can prepare for that event.

But on a smaller scale, predictive analysis could help businesses of all sizes determine when to hire temporary staff due to impending outbreaks of colds and flu that could result in a worker shortage.

Infographic: Top Digital Transformation Trends in 2019

6) The wonders of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than just a digital transformation trend in healthcare. AI represents the epitome of medical innovation and industry players are eager to invest millions in it. The healthcare AI-powered tools market is expected to exceed $34 billion by 2025 , which means this technology will shape almost all facets of the industry.

For most patients, AI in medicine brings to mind Japanese nurse robots. But now, there are plenty of American versions too, like Moxi , a friendly hospital droid designed to assist human nurses with routine tasks such as fetching and restocking supplies.

Chatbots and virtual health assistants are another AI-based technology that patients are becoming familiar with. Chatbots can fill a multitude of roles from customer service representatives to diagnostic tools and even therapists . Their versatility is being translated in heavy investments. The global healthcare chatbots market is projected to reach $314.3 million by 2023 from $122 million in 2018.

But the real power of AI can be best observed in areas like precision medicine , medical imaging, drug discovery, and genomics. For instance, cancer patients used to receive cookie-cutter treatments with high failure rates. Now, thanks to AI’s sophisticated pattern recognition, these patients have access to personalized therapies tailored to their genetic makeup and lifestyle.

What AI-powered computer programs do for oncology, in a nutshell, is analyze thousands of pathology images of various cancers to provide highly accurate diagnoses and predict the best possible anti-cancer drug combinations. And, in medical imaging diagnostics, this technology helps radiologists spot details that escape the human eye.

What’s more, top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are using machine learning algorithms to shorten the drug development cycle. In fact, recent findings show that AI can slash early drug discovery timelines by four years against the industry average, and generate cost savings of 60 percent.

Overall, AI is predicted to bring $150 billion dollars in annual savings for the US healthcare economy by 2026. Startups are already jumping on this opportunity; the number of active AI startups has increased 14-fold since 2000 .

These numbers alone should be enough to convince any CEO looking to usher their health organization into reaching digital maturity that AI is worth the investment.

7) Blockchain and the promise of better electronic health records

Blockchain has recently developed a bad reputation due to the burst of the cryptocurrency bubble . Now, the average person thinks of blockchain as of this vague, puzzling concept that doesn't have much of an impact on their life. In reality, this technology will soon play an instrumental role in keeping their electronic health records accurate and safe.

Blockchain is a digital ledger or a computerized database of transactions. Shared across a network of computers, it allows customers to safely exchange financial information with suppliers, without the need of a third party such as a bank.

The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are already vouching for its efficiency by investing millions in this market. According to a recent report, blockchain in healthcare market is expected to reach $890.5 million by 2023 .

In healthcare, blockchain is proven to be an effective tool in preventing data breaches, improving the accuracy of medical records, and cutting costs.

For years, health officials and experts have been trying to come up with doable solutions to the problem of fragmented medical records .

An electronic health record (EHR) is basically the digital version of a medical chart and includes everything from a patient’s medical history and diagnoses, to treatment plans, immunization dates, and test results. It also contains their home address, previous workplaces, as well as financial information like credit card numbers. This is what makes EHRs such an appealing target for hackers, who are selling them for up to $1,000 on the black market.

Yet, for as valuable as they are, hospitals are falling short in managing their EHRs.

Medical data is currently being recorded in unstructured formats and stretched across multiple EHR systems. Already short-staffed doctors and nurses struggle to manually log in every piece of information. This leads to huge errors such as duplicate medical records, misdiagnoses, delayed treatments, and even deaths.

Some countries like Australia and UK have started to experiment with blockchain technology to manage medical records and transactions among patients, healthcare providers, and insurance companies. Thanks to a decentralised network of computers that handle the blockchain and simultaneously register every transaction, conflicting information is automatically detected. Records are not only 100% accurate, but also harder to hack.

I n the U.S., regulations make it harder for companies to create blockchain-based EHRs. Some startups like Medicalchain , however, are making big strides towards a future where patients will control their EHRs from an app , where doctors, pharmacists, or health insurers will be requesting permission to access their data and where all transactions will be recorded on the distributed ledger.

Health in the palm of your hand

The healthcare system is undergoing a seismic shift in how information is obtained and disseminated. Gone are the days when all medical information was under the lock and key of doctors and surgeons, and patients had to sign away their lives to access their own health information – consumers want to be able to access all aspects of their health record and do so from the palm of their hand.

Through tools such as online patient portals that provide medical test results, diagnosis, and explanations of illnesses, patients are now becoming participants in their well being.

And that allows doctors to analyze patients in real-time.

What does it really mean when your FitBit says you’ve completed 14,000 steps in a day? By itself, that is just information. It becomes valuable when doctors and medical analysts transform that this data into actionable knowledge about how those steps helped you burn a specific number of calories, and that increasing those steps will help you maintain your ideal weight. While digital technology is a valuable tool in healthcare, it’s important to remember that it is still just a tool that you can add in your repertoire.

5G mobile technology for instantaneous healthcare

Speaking of health in the palm of your health or in your pocket…As wireless technology gets more sophisticated, so does the delivery of medicine.

Introduced by Qualcomm, the world's largest mobile chipset supplier, 5G enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB) is considered to be the driver of the new mobile industry revolution.

The technology can run up to 100 times faster than the current cellular connection, which made industry experts confident that it will completely change the healthcare landscape and lead to savings of up to $650 billion by 2025 .

Here’s how.

First, Qualcomm says 5G will make “buffering” a thing of the past, allowing for instantaneous streaming, downloading, and uploading. For telemedicine, this means patients will experience better video conference quality, regardless of location. More importantly, doctors will have access to accurate, real-time imaging of organs, soft tissue, and bones, which in turn will greatly decrease the risk of misdiagnosis .

With the current network bandwidth, it takes hours for doctors to send large imaging files to a specialist. Once health facilities will switch to 5G networks, the transmission process will take just a couple of minutes.

And that’s not even a fraction of how 5G could transform healthcare.

“5G is designed to pair with technologies like artificial intelligence and XR to enhance current services and applications, offering a different level of user experiences,” says Qualcomm .

Let’s take a look at some practical examples:

But it is in the wearable medical device market where 5G will cause the greatest disruption. Remote monitoring technology has yet to reach its full potential due slow network speeds and unreliable connections. With 5G, clinicians will be able to instantaneously collect medical data such as a vitals or physical activity levels from disparate sources and large groups of patients and make fast, reliable diagnoses .

This is preventative care at its best: fewer people developing chronic conditions and less money spent caring for patients in hospitals or in emergency rooms. All in all, 5G is guaranteed to play a major role in healthcare this year and patients will be the first ones to feel the positive changes. The first 5G data cards were launched in 2019 along 5G smartphones which also hit the market last year .

The state of digital transformation in healthcare (both web and mobile ) in 2023 looks quite promising, doesn’t it?

As with any business, the goal is to create products and services that improve lives or fulfill a want or need. Technology can help you realize this goal. Use this guide as a compass to navigate your way through the digital healthcare space and to build transformative experiences – with the client at the center of everything you do.

Do you need guidance with your digital transformation initiatives? Digital Authority Partners has worked with companies like Athenahealth, Omron Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield on cutting-edge digital initiatives that improve patient outcomes and quality of care. Contact Digital Authority Partners at [email protected] or 312-820-9893.

You may also be interested in reading our in-depth Healthcare industry reports:

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How Digital Transformation Can Improve Hospitals’ Operational Decisions

Song-Hee Kim

It can help with patient flow, staffing, scheduling, and supply-chain management.

The use of digital technologies in clinical decision-making has received the most attention. But they also have the potential to help hospitals make better decisions in many areas of operations. Research and hospitals’ experiences show that they can make a big difference in such areas as the management of the patient flow, staffing, scheduling, and the supply chain. The result can be improvements in the quality and efficiency of care and patients’ access to it.

Many companies are interested in digital transformation — using digital technologies to create or modify business processes, culture, and customer experiences — to grow and stay ahead of the competition, and hospitals are no exception.

When people think about digital transformation in health care, they tend to focus on the idea of employing analytics to improve clinical decision-making. For example, with advances in computational science and machine learning, it’s become possible to deliver precision medicine, where therapies and interventions are tailored to each patient based on the individual’s genetic profile. Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are increasingly being used to improve the visual detection of signs of disease in fields such as radiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, and pathology.

However, focusing on leveraging digital transformation solely to improve clinical decision making would be a mistake. Based on our research and that of others as well as the burgeoning advances in how hospitals are using data and technology, we believe that digital transformation has a substantial role to play in optimizing hospitals’ operational decision-making, which in turn can lead to improvements in the quality and efficiency of care and patients’ access to it.

Here are four key areas where hospitals can leverage digital transformation to improve operational decision-making: patient flow, staffing, scheduling, and supply chain management.

Patient Flow

As hospitals strive to provide the right care to the right patient at the right time, care providers need to do two things: evaluate patients’ needs accurately and manage hospital resources effectively. While providers are well trained to do the former, they’re usually not trained for the latter, which is a challenging task — especially given the strain on hospital capacity that’s all too common these days due to the pandemic.

At the hospital level, data-driven operational decision-support systems can provide valuable insights to aid in making these triage, admission, and discharge decisions. For example, when a patient arrives and the provider is unsure whether the patient should be sent to the ICU or a general ward, a decision-support algorithm can provide recommendations based on the predicted benefit of ICU admission for that particular patient. Research using patient-level operational data from more than 190,000 hospitalizations across 15 U.S. hospitals shows that when patients who had a clinical need for admission to the ICU are instead admitted to another part of the hospital (e.g., a general ward), this results in longer hospital stays and higher readmission rates.

When the capacity of the desired ICU is constrained, the provider may consider different options such as placing the patient in another unit (e.g., a surgical ICU instead of a medical ICU) or discharging patients who are currently in the ICU to make room for the new ones. Research using hospital operational data shows that both strategies have important tradeoffs and unintended consequences that should be accounted for. Decision-support algorithms can be designed to incorporate these tradeoffs, weigh the costs and benefits of the different choices, and provide appropriate recommendations.

Going beyond recommendations, algorithms can be leveraged to automate operational tasks. Research findings from a series of experiments where physicians and Amazon Mechanical Turk workers were asked to manage a simulated hospital unit shows that behavioral biases and cognition-driven decision errors may influence providers’ operational decisions. Decomposing these decisions into clinical and operational components and using algorithms to automate the operational component may ultimately lead to better outcomes.

At the ward level, machine learning and decision-support algorithms can also be used to predict the expected number of admissions , discharges , and transfers to and from the ward, which in turn can guide subsequent actions based on these predictions. This can facilitate the bed turnover process, leading to improved patient flow and reduced length of stay. The predictions for individual wards can serve as inputs to a hospital-wide bed management dashboard, which can be used not only to display the current status of each ward but also to provide predictions for the expected future status throughout the hospital.

For example, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, in collaboration with a team of operations researchers from MIT, has implemented prediction-informed dashboards to support admission and transfer decisions by displaying each ward’s current census as well as projected number of discharges. Similarly, Boston Children’s Hospital uses the Predictor of Patient Placement System , which allows the emergency department to know which patients are likely to be admitted to the hospital and to which ward. Hospital-wide bed management dashboards enable better planning and enhanced communication across the different wards and can be further developed to provide automated alerts about the system, such as when the average wait time for a new bed exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Digital technologies can also help with the supply side when it comes to better managing capacity. Take, for example, nurse staffing, which accounts for a significant proportion of hospitals’ costs. Instead of relying on phone calls, text messages, and spreadsheets to make ad-hoc staffing decisions that often change at the very last minute, charge nurses and hospital administrators can utilize analytics to improve this process.

For example, algorithms can predict nurse absenteeism rates and the need for surge staffing to preemptively determine the right number of float nurses to call in. Research in emergency department operations shows that both can be modeled, even in environments where demand is highly uncertain. A key advantage is the ability of these systems to preempt and respond more quickly, which in turn can improve the consistency and predictability of the work schedule for nurses. This aspect is likely to be important as hospitals and other health care delivery organizations work on reducing notoriously high nurse-turnover rates: Research examining nursing turnover in one of the largest home health agencies in the United States shows that employer-driven inconsistency in workers’ schedules increases workers’ likelihood of quitting.

Analytics can also be leveraged to optimize team staffing. Hospitals rely on providers to work together effectively as a team, with team members spanning different roles and levels of experience. Research shows that the composition of care teams has a significant impact on performance. A study of emergency department teams collectively conducting more than 111,000 patient visits over the course of two years reveals that the differences in hierarchy and skill across attending physicians, nurses, and resident physicians lead to varying effects of being exposed to new team members when it comes to team performance.

Another study of cardiac surgery teams conducting more than 6,000 surgeries over seven years shows that it is important to account for the pairwise familiarity among team members — the number of past collaborations for all pairs within the team — because it has significant implications for team productivity. While it is nearly impossible to incorporate these takeaways when trying to staff teams manually, AI can easily incorporate these research insights to determine the optimal team composition of providers scheduled to work and provide recommendations on optimal staffing levels.

While many hospitals have moved to electronically capturing and storing patient records, the scheduling of various resources is still largely a manual process. This applies to the scheduling of surgical procedures in operating rooms, scans in radiology suites, and many others. This is another area where digital technologies can bring substantial improvements — not only by better predicting resource needs and effortlessly incorporating last-minute changes and cancelations but also by optimizing schedules based on the latest research.

For example, machine-learning algorithms can be used to better predict the duration of each procedure such as the length of a surgery or an MRI . At the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, tools developed by Amazon are being used to book operating room times more precisely.

The expected duration is a function of not only patient characteristics and their clinical needs but also various operational factors. For example, researchers find that surgical procedure times tend to increase as a function of larger team sizes , higher workloads , and the sequence of the operation in the operating room. Algorithms are better equipped than humans to account for the effects of such operational factors in making predictions.

Machine learning can also be used to predict the required time that each patient should spend in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) following a surgery. Since PACU congestion often leads to delays in the operating room, this is another place where analytics can be used. For example, this study leverages analytics to optimally sequence surgical procedures to help prevent PACU congestion and minimize operating room delays.

Supply Chain Management

In the United States, hospitals spent an average of $11.9 million each on medical and surgical supplies in 2018, accounting for up to one third of total operating expenses at some. Despite this, improving supply chain and inventory management is often not considered a high priority for hospitals, where providers tend to focus more on the processes surrounding direct patient care. Yet, having these supplies is necessary for delivering high-quality care.

Across many industries, digitally transforming the supply chain has been shown to reduce process costs by 50% and increase revenue by 20%; hospitals are no exception. By automating the process of collecting data, ordering, reconciling, and paying for medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical supplies, hospitals can reduce supply chain and inventory management-related costs. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, improving agility and resilience to demand and supply-side shocks has become even more critical , and hospital managers are increasingly looking for ways to leverage data and technology to gain insight into inventory, pricing, lead times, and demand trends.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies and internet-connected trackers can be used to better track and locate supplies in real-time. For example, Mayo Clinic’s Saint Marys Hospital rolled out an RFID system for their emergency room operations in 2015, which led to improved care and patient experience as well as lower costs.

Pooling and coordinating supplies across different departments within a hospital can significantly reduce the amount of inventory required to meet a given service level. While physical centralization is one way to achieve this, information centralization, which can be easily achieved with a digitized supply-chain-management system, may be sufficient to reap the same benefits.

To make this type of digital transformation possible, hospitals must be intentional in the way they collect data and interact with their information technology systems. We have three prescriptions for how to go about this.

1. Collect the right data in the right format.

Start by identifying the pain points and the low-hanging fruit. When and where is data still collected and communicated offline? Can the fax become automatically captured and recorded in the electronic medical record (EMR) system? Can phone calls and text messages be reduced and replaced by electronic communications via the EMR?

When capturing data, be sure to capture operational characteristics in addition to clinical factors. Timestamps are a rich source of data that offer insight into hospital operations. Timestamps should be captured both when events occur (e.g., a bed is assigned to a patient, test results become available, or a patient is discharged) and when resources are requested (e.g., a bed is requested, a consult is requested, a test is ordered). Keeping track of the latter allows managers to understand the underlying demand for resources even if not all of the demands could be met, which allows for better planning for the future.

In addition to timestamps, be sure to also keep an accurate inventory of resources that gets updated in real time. Resources include not only medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical supplies that are ordered on a regular basis, but also beds, large equipment, and staff.

2. Set yourself up for scalability and interoperability.

From the outset, design the data-collection system with scalability and interoperability (the ability of different IT systems or equipment to exchange and make use of data) in mind. Standardize the input formats to minimize (or eliminate) the need for data cleaning and to enhance the quality of inputs into algorithms. Familiarize yourself with the four levels of interoperability and the established interoperability standards to set up a system that will facilitate health information exchange and data sharing.

Ultimately, having a uniform baseline data architecture and a standardized data format will allow for easier implementation and replicability of algorithmic tools across hospitals. In the United States, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and many health care delivery organizations are looking to adopt Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards.

3. Don’t lose sight of the human-algorithm interaction.

While algorithms can produce helpful predictions and recommendations, ultimately the decision-maker is the human. As a result, we must be cognizant of the widespread nature of algorithm aversion by decision-makers and aim to develop algorithms that are fair, explainable, prevent harm, and respect human autonomy so that the decision-maker can trust the algorithms . Furthermore, creating superb algorithms alone cannot improve hospital operations. Algorithms need to be carefully designed, implemented, and evaluated with the user in mind.

It’s also important to remember that health care is a knowledge-intensive industry. Care providers often possess a significant amount of local knowledge or expertise that algorithms fail to capture. Completely replacing human decision-makers by algorithms may not be the solution because incorporating human judgement and experience can often enhance the performance of algorithms.

Given the aging population, prevalence of chronic conditions, and advances in medicine, it has become more important than ever for hospitals to operate efficiently and effectively. Going forward, the key to improving operational decision-making will lie in their ability to leverage digital transformation.

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More From Forbes

3 ways digital transformation drives growth in healthcare.

Sara Vaezy is the EVP, Chief Strategy & Digital Officer at Providence, and architected their digital innovation model.

Profitable growth is of paramount importance to health systems today. In the first quarter of 2022, health systems, including large systems like Kaiser and Ascension , posted significant losses.

In my home state of Washington alone, hospitals suffered a net loss of nearly $929 million , according to the Washington State Hospital Association. The lingering recovery from Covid-19 increased operating costs, and changing demand for services all play a role.

There are three key ways digital transformation can drive growth in healthcare.

The most significant and positive way to address the growth imperative for health systems: Digital innovation. But it’s about much more than simply modernizing infrastructure. Digital innovation must be about fundamentally transforming the health care business model from a consumer perspective.

1. It bolsters both customer acquisition and loyalty.

Digital sits at the center of nearly every growth pathway. Not only does it play a critical role in demand generation, aggregation and capture, but it also supports the increased capture of lifetime or long-term customer value—thereby transforming the CAC vs. LTV equation.

Best Travel Insurance Companies

Best covid-19 travel insurance plans.

In both the travel and banking industries, we’ve seen the effects of a digitally-driven model. Aggregators like Expedia and Travelocity changed the way people shop for and book travel, and they also offered new insight into the market that wasn’t fully understood before. Meanwhile, banks were able to learn more about their customers and leverage that insight into personalized offers, increasing the lifetime value of their customers.

Health systems must start adopting and driving those same principles. Enabling customers to seamlessly access, navigate and book services and care options—across all channels—are no longer nice-to-haves; they are mission-critical consumer requirements. As consumers, expectations have changed in nearly every other industry, from financial services to restaurants to travel and retail. Healthcare can no longer be the outlier.

Insights driven from customer data platforms and identity-driven engagement deliver a greater understanding of consumers in the market across various lines of care, enabling marketing to be far more personalized and efficient.

Platforms like DexCare aggregate and match digital demand with health system capacity across all lines of care, streamline the experience for both patients and providers and maximize resources.

In fact, at my own company Providence, DexCare has enabled service lines to drive new customer acquisition into a single service, capture a much greater amount of downstream revenue and generate a higher per-patient encounter in cost savings.

This digitally-driven approach requires health systems to become more sophisticated in measuring effectiveness. Metrics such as Monthly Active Users (MAU) and the number of patient/customer accounts, also known as Digitally Registered Users (DRU), lend insight into what the customer funnel really looks like. And the development of Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) models helps business leaders to transform their marketing from an expense into an investment that fuels growth and can be attributed to specific campaigns.

2. It allows for new product enablement.

Health technology companies have experienced aggressive, record-breaking funding over the past few years. There is a tremendous opportunity for health systems to leverage the innovation market and funding by partnering in ways that create entirely new sources of revenue through new product and service enablement.

The healthcare market in the U.S. is incredibly complex and localized. Products and solutions that can support the ecosystem in a flexible way have an advantage. Imagine having a simplified and standardized platform that offers a holistic view of a patient— streamlining the transactions, communications and engagement with patients while also optimizing precious resources and reducing caregiver burnout.

These types of platforms enable health systems to take full advantage of the speed and market investment to drive transformation. Companies whose business model revolves around being a true platform company—taking into account the wide range of operational and business logic of different constituents without forcing organizations into a specific operating model—will win.

That nuanced approach to building commercial products can be a game changer. It’s also why digital innovations developed from inside a health system may be the most valuable overall.

3. It opens up new business models.

Beyond driving customer acquisition and retention, digital transformation carries the power to change the economics of the health system to support new business models that enable growth. Digital not only enables scalable solutions, but it also enables more direct, personalized and meaningful consumer interactions that can deliver greater business impact.

Consider the ability of health systems to segment customers across patient populations, conditions and needs—offering premium services that might guide users both through and between episodes of care. This is an entirely new operating model—one that Amazon’s recent $4 billion acquisition of OneMedical suggests is a mass market opportunity.

Tech-enabled Medicare Advantage models that combine care management and consumer-facing technology tools to enable high-value care delivery at scale demonstrate other examples of how digital opens up new operating models.

Devoted Health has raised over $1 billion and now has nearly 67,000 MA members, more than double its 2021 enrollment. Meanwhile, Clover Health has partnered with Walmart to expand its reach and grow new customers.

A myriad of opportunities exists, from new business models to new direct-to-consumer or direct-to-employer offerings or even new types of insurance companies. All of these digitally-centered models possess the ability to bring meaningful change to the way health systems work.

We can’t talk about growth strategy and digital strategy separately.

Accenture recently determined that when hospitals deliver “superior” customer service, in their patients’ estimation, they see a 50% increase in net margins compared to “average” hospitals. Digital will continue to play a fundamental role in driving and delivering those experiences.

Digital can no longer be viewed as a veneer simply layered upon existing health care solutions. Formalizing digital as an organizational value driver is vital to driving self-disruption of our overall business model—and driving sustainable long-term growth and recovery for our organizations.

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Technology q&a, digital transformation.

Digital transformation is the recent trend in healthcare space, where people have started leveraging digital assets. It is the process of introducing digital technologies in all aspects of healthcare business – payer operations, provider operations, member interactions, etc. It is more of a cultural change and enables improvement in business agility, thereby improving operational excellence and patient experience, and reducing costs.

Driven by the need for value-based care, the healthcare industry is seeing a major shift towards digital transformation. Digital transformation is aimed at bringing an enormous impact on a member’s health and quality of life in a positive way.

Digitalization helps in:

Main trends of digital transformation are:

Challenges in digital transformation:

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How digital transformation is driving action in healthcare

Health information systems are designed to manage healthcare data. Image: Freepik.

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Driving digital transformation in healthcare: An interview with Dr. Pius S. Hornstein, Country Chair Sanofi Greater China

Digital technology is driving rapid, fundamental change in almost every aspect of our daily lives. For younger generations, and the young at heart, mobile digital experiences are an integral part of consumer services, from banking and insurance, to entertainment, retail, and travel.

Healthcare is no exception. Patients, healthcare providers, and other industry stakeholders are moving to a fully digitalized offline-to-online patient journey, opening new opportunities in the research and development of medicines and delivery of healthcare services, while resolving barriers to treatment and improving patient outcomes.

Under CEO Paul Hudson, French-European pharmaceutical company Sanofi is seeking to shape this transition; pursuing global leadership in scientific innovation, and the use of digital technology and data to transform the practice of medicine.

In China, Sanofi’s second-largest market, those goals are being realized in the form of new institutions dedicated to driving digital innovation in healthcare: In early 2019, Sanofi established an Innovation Hub in Shanghai to deepen and expand its relationships with China’s dynamic digital players, before opening the Sanofi Institute for Biomedical Research in Suzhou last year.

This new global institute integrates Sanofi’s early research capabilities with China’s drug discovery ecosystem, aiming to accelerate the development of best-in-class and first-in-class medicines. It also seeks to pioneer virtual healthcare services like Amulet Health Technologies (AHT), a Sanofi subsidiary launched in 2021 to provide integrated online-to-offline care for chronic disease patients.

Borne from a partnership with the Shanghai Pudong Software Park, AHT embodies Sanofi’s collaborative approach to digital innovation, which spans partnerships with technology giants Jing Dong Health, Ping An Health, and Tencent, as well as an array of China-based start-ups.

AHT’s open-handed evolution is also characteristic of Dr. Pius S. Hornstein, Country Chair Sanofi Greater China, a company veteran who has presided over Sanofi’s China business since early 2019.

Hornstein recently spoke with Franck Le Deu, leader of McKinsey’s Asia Life Sciences practice, and Serina Tang, an associate partner in McKinsey’s Shanghai office, about the challenges of leading digital transformation across a vast pharmaceutical company.

Their conversation highlights the importance of staying relentlessly focused on milestones while measuring return on investment (ROI), the secret to attracting and retaining digital talent, and how technological advances are changing healthcare delivery in the world’s second-largest economy.

McKinsey: How did you arrive at your current role in Sanofi China?

Pius Hornstein: This journey started in Brazil in 2015, where I first experienced a digital ecosystem that was in some aspects more advanced than the U.S. or Europe in areas such as banking and healthcare. I considered how we might integrate a digital, patient-focused experience into the healthcare system, and went on to study what digital disruption means for business at the Singularity University in California. China, with its renowned digital ecosystem, was the natural place to come and apply the things I’d learned.

McKinsey: What makes China’s digital healthcare ecosystem different from other markets?

Hornstein: China’s 1 billion mobile internet users, who are incredibly attuned to convenient mobile digital experiences, and vast healthcare system present a huge opportunity for digital to improve patients’ lives. China’s vibrant technology ecosystem is another point of difference; we leverage Tencent’s WeChat mini-programs to improve patient interactions, and WeCom, the enterprise version of WeChat, to liaise directly with advanced clinical practitioners (ACPs). Finally, an ultra-rapid development and iteration cycle, in which it can take as little as three months to deliver a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), makes the China market truly unique.

McKinsey: How will digital transformation affect the way Sanofi China operates five years from now?

Dr. Pius S. Hornstein

Holds a master’s degree in pharmacy and earned his PhD in medical research, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Basel, Switzerland. He is also an alumnus of INSEAD and Singularity University.

Leads over 8,000 associates as Sanofi China General Manager and Country Lead, driving the introduction of innovative medicines, the adoption of best-in-class digital transformation, and the nurturing of leading talent in Sanofi’s second-largest market.

Serves as Board Member of the RDPAC (R&D-based Pharmaceutical Association Committee) of China.

Acts as Vice Chair of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China’s Shanghai chapter.

Led Sanofi Group Brazil as Country Chair and General Manager Pharma in São Paulo from 2015 to 2019, where he oversaw Sanofi Genzyme, Medley, Specialty Care, Diabetes, and established Care, and served as Chairman of the Board of Sanofi unit Medley Indústria Farmacêutica.

Headed Sanofi’s Turkey and Middle East operations with P&L responsibility for PharmaOps.

Held multiple roles with P&L responsibility for Sanofi’s leading global brands in Europe.

Is a recipient of the Magnolia Silver Award from the City of Shanghai for his contribution to innovation and the advancement of healthcare.

As a leading healthcare company, Sanofi needs to understand where and how it can contribute to that ecosystem to offer the best standard of care. How do we interact with physicians, or help patients to find the right information, and assist both parties with adhering to clinical guidance? Meanwhile, we want to have a real understanding of patient needs, use their feedback to upgrade, and help them to improve their treatment outcomes.

From the business perspective, scalable operational efficiencies are allowing us to truly understand the 40-50,000 healthcare practitioner (HCP) interactions we handle each day. We can measure HCP satisfaction via NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys, leverage them to design meaningful interactions and initiatives, and better equip our staff. On the recruitment front for example, we transformed an almost entirely offline recruitment process for the roughly 3,500 people we hire each year into one where onboarding is more than 90 percent digital. Our HR teams and the candidates saved thousands of hours, and we now focus on adding value elsewhere. As a result, the average NPS among people applying to Sanofi is now 72. That great digital experience immediately positions us as an innovative company, and has a positive impact on ROI.

McKinsey: The scope of your digital transformation is now very broad, but what were your first steps?

Hornstein: We started with a three-year high level vision and roadmap that was fully aligned with our global ambition. By 2020, we transitioned from our legacy and highly fragmented ITS (IT Services) organization, with dozens of reporting lines out of the country across different hardware and software systems, to one of the first in China to have a consolidated digital organization—technology infrastructure, data, digital, and innovation—all under one roof. It was a big move that united people around a common ambition, and helped us gain significant velocity and traction.

McKinsey: How did you go about measuring progress on the digital journey?

Hornstein: At the start of the journey, we discovered we had more than 150 projects, not all of which were well defined or had clear success metrics. That is a classic mistake, but one that led us to understand that we need to ruthlessly prioritize and be laser-focused on creating value for patients and the company. We looked closely at delivering incremental ROI, either by improving patient care or increasing revenues or operational efficiency. Then we benchmarked ourselves against other pharmaceutical companies and non-pharma digital leaders. We quickly established our WeCom platform for HCP interaction, as well as our data lake and application hosting environment on Tencent Cloud. We benefited from that decision during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we increased or sustained our performance despite almost no in-person interactions with HCPs. According to McKinsey’s Digital Quotient Index, we have risen in digital maturity from below average in mid-2019 to among the top 10 percent of pharma companies globally, and among the top 10 percent of companies across all industries surveyed in China by the end of 2021.

McKinsey: Last year, you launched Amulet Health Technology. What was the idea behind that, and how does it resonate with plans for digital health to drive new revenue streams?

Hornstein: All the great medicines in the world are meaningless if patients are not diagnosed. More than half of patients with diabetes go undiagnosed in China. Of those who are diagnosed, more than half do not receive the appropriate therapy, and many of those who receive therapy discontinue prematurely. Creating digital tools that appropriately facilitate and improve physician-patient or nurse- patient interactions is a challenge. Amulet Health Technology, a virtual approach to managing patients with chronic disease that integrates software tools and professional care, is part of a possible response.

Ultimately, we want to develop a digital patient journey solution that can be reimbursed by the healthcare system. Digital Therapeutics (DTx) products are already making inroads in the U.S., and German authorities have taken a bold step to reimburse some services. We expect that China’s regulators will follow suit, and reward appropriately— there is definitely a patient need and positive impact on treatment outcomes.

McKinsey: What was the thinking behind organizing the 2021 Dream and Go summit, which attracted almost 7,000 participants from China’s healthcare ecosystem?

Hornstein: We want to leverage innovations no matter where they come from. We partner with start-ups and tech companies through our Innovation Hub, and aim to continue working openly with the ecosystem. Since 2019, Dream and Go—our annual, mainly online, event—has enabled us to meet tech companies with the potential to help us co-create and resolve pain points. We also invite venture capital and other investment firms, who introduce us to entrepreneurs with whom we can cooperate or invest. For example, we collaborated with a company that develops devices to measure tremors and other indicators in Parkinson’s patients, gathering real-world evidence on how they react to therapies over time. These efforts have elevated Sanofi’s reputation as a digital and innovation leader in the healthcare sector, making it easier to attract talent.

McKinsey: What are the key factors behind the success of Sanofi China’s digital transformation?

Hornstein: Being very clear about what you want to achieve. You really want to have a strong global company strategy that is fully aligned with large markets. The enemy of any go-to-market digital transformation is fragmentation, especially in a company of Sanofi’s size. As I mentioned, you need to ruthlessly prioritize, and recognize that six months down the road, new shiny objects could creep in to dilute your initial objectives, and slow down your ability to create big wins.

Today, we invest less in aggregate than we did three years ago, yet for the chosen priority projects, we devote more resources. Our iterative agile build cycles go faster and involve users in the development process, resulting in solutions that are much more relevant and impactful.

A second obstacle to success is us, the leadership, the management team. Everybody likes to have their sphere of business power, which in the past was linked to a specific, often siloed, P&L. The digital future is not like that. You need to be more open, able to empower, delegate, and collaborate. Nurturing digital capability is another factor. We had to train up a critical mass of people who could understand digital in order to attract and retain digital talent. Previously, we didn’t move fast enough and rejected innovative ways of working introduced by the new talent, which led to frustration and rapid churn.

McKinsey: Are the majority of Sanofi employees following agile principles at this point?

Hornstein: Our first priority was to instill an agile mindset and ways of working within the digital organization. As most were from our legacy ITS organization, with waterfall-like, project-based principles, this was no easy task. We paired digital teams with business teams to co-build key products. Then, we refocused on commercial operations, and especially medical and marketing, because we wanted to make a more positive impact on patients. That meant recruiting more agile coaches, driving agile awareness, rolling out training, and adapting our office space to support agile pod work.

We have certified Scrum Masters and Product Owners, and are training up the next generation of agile coaches. The agile mindset is also about learning by doing; it’s a continuous learning journey for our employees. I’d say we are halfway along that process. Over the next two years, we aspire to achieve agile at-scale. However, we don’t intend to work agile everywhere; there are still areas where it is better to work in the classic waterfall method. Finding the right balance is key.

McKinsey: What are the major barriers to scaling up agile and digital ways of working?

Hornstein: The first step is to ensure your technology and data foundation is fit for purpose. Having systems which are not fragmented, and data in one cloud, is essential if you want to move at scale. Sanofi’s heritage of mergers and acquisitions made this an acute challenge. For Sanofi China, we resolved two-and-a-half years ago that we would have a one-cloud data approach. We also decided our front-end for customers and employees would be on mobile first, leveraging WeCom. Then we started to tackle the bigger issue of agile-digital knowledge. We have already rolled out agile and digital capability training to much of our corporate workforce, but much still needs to be done to upgrade the mindset and culture—although we are also making good progress here, too.

McKinsey: How do you go about attracting and retaining digital talent?

Hornstein: China’s healthcare market has an average attrition rate of 25-30 percent; every year, 30 out of 100 employees decide to move on. Digital talent is clearly in high demand. Our response was to move from a focus on retention to being permanently attractive for existing and prospective staff. We try to empower the people we hire, create interesting career growth opportunities, including across functions and potentially to global roles, and do our best to recognize achievements.

We also encourage our talent, who have an average age of 28, to pursue the ambitions they have in their private lives. The digital transformation helped raise employee satisfaction. As a result, our attrition rate is falling slightly even as China’s economic recovery is pushing the market level higher, especially in healthcare. Also, Sanofi is the only pharma company ever to rank as China’s leading employer, an accolade we achieved two years running in 2020 and 2021.

McKinsey: People often say that while China has a vast supply of data, much of it is poor quality. Can you improve data quality and make it more reliable?

Hornstein: Saying that China’s data is unreliable is too often used as an excuse not to look at the data. That is a profound mistake. Look at your data, whatever the quality, as it helps you benchmark customer behavior and derive insights. Simply by looking, standardizing, and curating data, the quality will improve rapidly. Then install a proper data governance process with accountable data owners, and give them digital monitoring tools to keep incoming data high quality. Creating digital touchpoints, for example using WeCom to interact with healthcare professionals (HCPs), also allows us to generate our own data, and improve quickly by measuring customer satisfaction and other variables.

McKinsey: What role does advanced analytics play in digital transformation?

Hornstein: While it has become a bit of a buzzword, like artificial intelligence, advanced analytics is fundamental as it facilitates a data-driven approach to our decision making across the board, rather than relying on subjectivity. For instance, we already have a smart engine that analyzes data from 50,000 touchpoints a day, allowing us to map correlations and then tailor improved customer interactions. This in turn yields higher efficiency and productivity for our field force and marketers. Eventually, we want to connect interactions—physical and digital—and medication delivery together for the best patient experience. This will require advanced analytics.

McKinsey: Three years from now, looking back at what the digital transformation has achieved, how would you define success?

Hornstein: We aim to be the leader in China’s healthcare medical education ecosystem. We want to be recognized by patients and the healthcare community for how we improve patients’ lives, not only in terms of our best-in-class drug portfolio, but also how we interact with them and address their needs. We will contribute to a patient journey that is largely digitalized, be meaningfully embedded in the digital healthcare ecosystem, and generate new revenues by doing so. We will also have transformed into the most efficient company possible—operating lean, agile, and with an extremely high innovation index.

Franck Le Deu is a senior partner in McKinsey & Company’s Hong Kong office; Serina Tang is an associate partner in Shanghai.

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