How Digital Transformation Enablers can have a deep impact in the Healthcare Industry
Global management consulting firm McKinsey ranks industries based on their Digital Quotient (DQ), a product of data assets, data skills, and data utilization. The healthcare sector’s DQ comes in below almost all other industries, leaving a lot of room to increase and improve digitization.?
Digital transformation has been a key service offering differentiator in the healthcare industry post COVID-19. We are witnessing the adoption of phygital care (physical entities managed using digital technology) in the sector. A no-code platform like AppSteer helps hospitals and healthcare businesses to quickly build Apps which help to streamline operations, enhance the patient experience and make on-demand patient care more accessible and affordable.
According to a report by PwC AI Predictions 2021, Health services executives (who represent healthcare providers and health plans) most frequently said their primary goal for AI in 2021 is increasing efficiency and productivity (17%). The majority said they are most likely to use AI to address business challenges in the information technology function. PLS executives most frequently said they will use AI primarily to grow revenue (17%) and create innovative products and services (16%). The use cases are exhaustive and will vary with the size and nature of the healthcare service and the number of users.
Some key impact areas of? adoption of digital transformation are:
1.Digitize Processes
Healthcare Management systems can help cut down clerical work, reduce human data entry errors, and reduce physical storage requirements. Some tasks that can be automated are registration, scheduling, billing, and maintaining patient records, orders, and claims. It can also help in optimizing medical administration systems-? assign tasks better, be better prepared for emergencies, avoid overburden and burnout of staff members.
A demonstrated example of the adoption of digital processes- The One health plan is making the insurance claims process easier and faster for providers by using bots to assist employees in handling medical claims.
2. Improve Accessibility and reduce the Diagnosis Gap
Digital platforms are helping patients make informed decisions for doctors to consult, see their availability, connect and schedule appointments using their mobile phones and computers. Patients located in rural or remote areas or with mobility challenges can access healthcare virtually.?
A study conducted by Birmingham Hospital, Massachusetts found that 74% of people felt virtual visits improved their relationship with their provider.
3. Build Data First Environment
Many times, a case of medical emergency goes unreported or is wrongly reported due to no/ incorrect communication. With a varied user base, it is important to design a platform that enables information sharing in multiple formats. Some formats of data (other than oral narration) that can be processed using AI and ML :
Building an inclusive information ecosystem can help reach a wider user base and also acquire new users.
领英推荐
4. Bridge the Data Gaps
At individual level, wearables and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) continue to be a major trend in the digital transformation of the healthcare industry. These tools are enabling patients themselves to gather data and enhance preventive medical endeavors at both the micro and macro levels.
Currently, doctors’ offices have data coming in from a wide variety of sources, including but not limited to Patient Provided data, Internal health records, lab results, Imaging, and Pharmacy data. Using a digital data aggregation approach can help access patient records, medical history, insurance details etc all in one platform.? Thus enabling healthcare providers to make fast, informed patient-care decisions, without the fear of missing any key information.
Medical professionals can study comprehensive daily records to observe any surrounding or habitual factors affecting health. This data can also be utilized to monitor, predict health risks and devise long term care plans.
5. Increase Savings
With the increase cost of operations to provide healthcare at competitive costs, healthcare organizations are looking for way to optimize their operations processes. Digital adoption in supply chain management, procurement processes, inventory management can help achieve this goal.
Adoption of digital transformation can help incur overall cost savings of 7-11% on compliances. Using AI in drug discovery has a demonstrated reduction in discovery timeline by four years - generating savings of up to 60%.
AI is predicted to bring 150 billion dollars in annual savings to the US healthcare economy by 2026.
6. Increase Profitability
If you are wondering how does AI help improve profitability in the healthcare sector, here’s a small example: In 2012, Reckitt Benckiser, a maker of popular cold and flu remedies, used search data from the medical website WebMD (with almost 32 million monthly visitors at that time) to track cold and flu symptoms across the country and anticipate where outbreaks were likely to occur. Then the company released targeted geography- and symptom-specific advertising and promotions (including an offer for free home delivery) in those places. Along with a strong cold and flu season, this initiative helped Reckitt Benckiser, during one four-week period, to increase its US sales of cough and cold products by 22 percent, compared with the previous year.
(Source: Emily Steel, “Reckitt targets flu sufferers online,” Financial Times, November 5, 2012, ft.com)
The success of digital transformation in the healthcare sector is not limited to identifying opportunities and use cases but also how swiftly and widely digital disruption can be adopted. The former is an intent and later an action that Appsteer can help organizations achieve. Appster can assist in building and navigating multilayered resource databases with a simple no-code approach. Some areas we are helping our clients in the healthcare sector are :
In short, there are two ways to achieve your digital goal for healthcare, one- the tedious and traditional way of building requirements, design, etc.; and then there is the Appsteer way- skip the ‘start from scratch’ and run faster using templates. You can save time- the most expensive resource, and quickly build and customize tools with Appsteer's ready-made solutions. Save the hassle, dependency and overload on your IT resources, bring transparency and efficiency to your processes and go live in record time. All this and more, but as simple as 3-2-1 and lift-off!