Digital Healthcare Strategy
Technological advancement in healthcare is happening at a lightning speed. Growth and modernization of hardware, applications, and software features have created an increased potential for solving operational problems using digital tools. One of the main drivers of digital transformation is a demand for better health outcomes while breaking down silos of fragmented care. These drivers have pushed leaders across the healthcare spectrum to update antiquated business models to gain better efficiencies at a lower cost. One thing is clear — patients, providers, payers, and technology partners are all in agreement the paradigm shift in how we deliver care is essential to transforming healthcare and achieving better outcomes.
In general, improving health outcomes must include a way to measure aspects of achieving them, such as: care delivery model, patient compliance, access to care, gaps in care, early detection of potential health risks, real time decision making, technological and human errors, among many others. In summary, digital transformation means capturing various aspects of a care episode or health promotion journey in a digital format so the information can be presented to patients, care providers and operational leaders at the right place and right time. Therefore, I believe digitalization should thread all aspects of what impacts health outcomes together to allow for a transformational shift to take place.
Recognizing a need to embark on digital transformation is the first step — what to do and how to do it is another story. Launching transformational change in large organizations is exciting, and also extremely difficult. One must look inward to evaluate organizational culture and readiness prior to going through the digital innovation journey. To be successful in digital transformation, one must capture the mindshare of our care delivery partners, organizational leaders, front line staff, and healthcare consumers. This new way of thinking about care delivery using digitalization of systems has great impact on operations and therefore should be fully understood and embraced by every team member before it is completely rolled out. This will require high levels of cross collaboration and a letting go of habits associated with keeping antiquated business models afloat. It is also imperative to be inclusive of digital experts in business decision making so they can become your true partners and not an ad-hoc subject matter expert.
Transformational changes cannot be achieved without a solid organizational digital and change management strategy that casts the vision out on a 3–5-year plan. This plan should align with the larger organizational strategic plan so there is synergy between enabling tools and realizing the vision. Therefore, any organization that feels ready to go through a digital transformation journey must first define and develop their digital goals, tactics, methodologies, and framework. The framework should include structure, process, and outcome related components to ensure tactical alignment with the organizational culture. Under the digital health wave, focus is starting to move away from the idea of a health care incident and more into the idea of a health care continuum; disrupting the traditional mindset of “treatment”. As a result, if your digital transformation strategy is not in place prior to deploying tools and gadgets, it could result in a major misstep.
