Changing from Old to New(er)…

Tech-Enabled Living

Every day I use technology: I use it to turn on my coffee, to buy groceries on-line and have them delivered to my home. I use technology to track my walking miles, to determine my clothing size, to create play lists, to watch TV. In many ways, I’ve transformed my daily life into a ‘digitally enriched life’ without really realizing it. (I’m sure this makes many of the business that offer these sorts of services very happy.)

And I’m not alone. According to Nielsen, people on average spend over 10 hours a day using smartphones, computers, video games, radios, tablets and TVs to watch TV, talk to friends, communicate with others, get their news, order groceries and the like.

Not So Much in Healthcare

But, in contrast, not much is connected or ‘digitalized’ in healthcare. Sure, people have patient portals (which has low adoption rates), and sure, many people experienced virtual care for the first time this year. But other than a few tools, healthcare has been behind when it comes to transforming processes and operations—and operating models.

I know, I know, there are virtual primary care business and ‘bolt on’ condition-specific apps that exists, but where’s the end-to-end, coordinated vision for digital healthcare transformation?

While I can order dinner via an app, track that delivery mile by mile, no one at my doctor's office can tell me how long it will take for my blood work to come back, or when my doctor will read my X-ray.

While we are rapidly becoming ‘digitally transformation’ in our regular life, we are not keeping pace in healthcare.

How Tech Can Improve Medical Care

In healthcare, wrong site surgeries, wrong prescriptions, wrong does of medications, along with other lapses, errors and slip-ups happen all the time. It’s estimated that these types of medical errors (harm that occurs to patients that should not have) kills over 400,000 patients every year, which makes this the 3rd leading cause of death for Americans…and we’ve known this for at least 20 years.

And it happens all the time because processes are not hard wired--or intelligently automated--in hospital work flow.

Where is My Health-Tech-Enabled Life?

Even though health care executives say every day (either in conversation or in the press), that nothing is a greater priority than the digital transformation of their hospital or health system, advancement is slow.

So why is this?

Because, healthcare is excessively risk adverse. And there is a strong heritage of ‘do no wrong,’ which sometimes gets translated into ‘do very little innovation.’ But doing very little innovation leaves health systems and doctor’s practices vulnerable the ‘new players’ in healthcare. These ‘new players’ are companies like Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Amwell, whose core business is digital enablement to drive customer engagement. These companies—now competitors of health systems and physician practices—are built to optimize digital engagement, reduce customer hassle and remove fragmentation…All things that are desperately needed in health care.

Unless legacy health systems really take a hard look at the fundamentals of how they deliver every mile of customer service, they will stay ‘old,’ and the ‘next new’ will eat their lunch.

What should the ‘old players’ do to get competitive with the ‘new players?’

1.      Get Clear on Mission: Double-down on the company’s mission and purpose. Confirm and reconfirm the organization’s commitment to the mission, since this is what will anchor and drive any 'go-forward' strategy.

2.      Develop a Digital Strategy: Think through the patient experience and ‘re-imagine’ the patient journey and ask these questions: What is the organization's ‘digital front door’ vision? What is the ‘digital physician engagement and alignment’ strategy? What is the ‘digital population health’ strategy? What is the remote patient management and ‘digital care management’ strategy?

3.      Roadmap It: Figure out where ‘your value’ is going in healthcare—and then determine what needs to be done, by whom, by when, and in what order. Then map it back to the organization’s mission. Use digital transformation planning to design and implement the ‘new digital version’ of people process, technology.

4.      Normalize Change: Develop a digital ‘A-team,’ and get help from those who have planned and implemented a digital transformation before. Accept that the ‘old’ approach of ‘people, process, technology’ is well, old.

5.      De-Risk It. Since healthcare hates change and risk, de-risk it by ensuring there is an enabled, engaged, agile workforce that can implement the ‘strategic change framework.’ Remember that not all change leads to improvement, but all improvement requires change.

The “Next Normal”

In this pandemic, many industries have been able to advance their business plans many years in just 6 months. This gives an edge to the ‘new players,’ since they are used to running fast, making decisions quickly, compressing their digital transformation roadmap and implementing decisions in weeks instead of years.

People all around the world, almost overnight instantly changed their behaviors. Patients are seeing their doctors on-line, doctors are accepting the realities of tele-health, health systems are trying to figure out how to manage more care remotely, virtual specialty care is growing…lots of significant changes are all around health care.

My advice? Embrace this. It is the ‘next normal.’

 About the author: Julie Kliger is recognized by LinkedIn as a "Top Voice" in Health Care in 2015 & 2016, & 2017. She is a Healthcare ‘Strategic Realist’ who is passionate about improving health care and improving lives. She specializes in future-oriented healthcare redesign, translating bio/med-tech into legacy industries, implementing new care models and strategic change management. She is an adviser, clinician, health system board member, speaker and author. 

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