Three trends in healthcare operations

As we enter our fourth year of business and our focus expands beyond Ireland, we have seen three current trends that will impact the operational side of healthcare organisations. ?

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Regulatory frameworks?

The German healthcare system is one of the most advanced in the world with high levels of user satisfaction and outcomes. Despite having such an advanced health system, Germany have been a relative laggard in the digitisation of healthcare and have recognised this at a governmental level. A regulatory framework has been developed with the aim of pulling together disparate parts of the health sector so that Germany can go from laggard to leader. An interesting component is figuring out how the statutory insurers and providers can work together with government incentives for digitisation and penalties for failure to do so. If the gambit is successful and Germany becomes best in class, we can expect similarly structured health economies to follow suit.??

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Continued people problems?

Anecdotally, the operations component of hospitals and insurers were impacted by the post pandemic movement of staff and people. People are in pursuit of many things in their careers but certainly one important aspect is work flexibility.?More companies are now mandating staff back to the office, driven in part by a perceived loss of productivity. However, it will be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle and the hospitals and insurers who can deliver meaningful work flexibility will be well placed to compete in the recruitment market. Technology has a key role to play in delivering flexible work.?

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Limited internal IT resources?

Hospitals and Insurers will always face the challenge?of dealing with multiple technology products and projects with a limited number of?IT team members. As we move to new markets, we are seeing a few different concepts that aim to help IT teams to manage this problem. One is a highly involved partnership where the start-up has a close relationship to deliver on a service. Second is a group of companies working together to provide what looks like a single solution with a single SLA which reduces the number of companies that a hospital will need to deal with. Third, is an innovation team within an insurer or hospital that work?with start-ups to deliver a solution through a venture corporate unit. ?

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As healthcare becomes increasingly complex the above approaches will help hospitals, insurers, and health systems to continue to drive efficiencies while delivering the best care for patients. ?