How is the healthcare industry doing in its digital transformation journey?

In the past few years, the healthcare sector has been aiming to join other sectors such as banking, insurance, media, retail, and travel in a quest to deliver superior customer experiences. The healthcare industry has been striving to create a fundamental shift from volume to value-based care. Driven by the need to deliver a better customer experience, the healthcare sector is leveraging digital transformation services. In fact, healthcare providers from across the world are constantly involved in digitizing their services to achieve greater life expectancy for individuals. The salvo of digital business transformation in the healthcare sector has triggered a tectonic shift, even obliging third party care providers such as insurance companies to modify their approach. This is done by executing out of the box digital transformation solutions.

Digital transformation in the healthcare sector is rapidly proving to be a game-changer by large-scale deployment of artificial intelligence and automation. For example, the introduction of chatbots to replace human interaction helps reduce costs and the need to consult a doctor in person. Digital transformation promotes a shift in the processes and behavior while encouraging innovation in creating new business models by connecting customers, partners, suppliers, and stakeholders.

A comprehensive overhaul of user experience in the healthcare sector to bring about innovative and superior quality is a daunting task. However, the medical practitioners and clinics that prioritize patient experience would see an increase in satisfaction. According to a survey by Harvard Business Review, the majority of patients (approx. 97 %) were completely satisfied with their first telehealth experience leading to an improved relationship with their care providers.

Superior quality care is just a snapshot of what the healthcare industry could provide if the digital transformation becomes a priority for the entire industry. Let us take a closer look at how digital transformation strategy is changing current practices of the healthcare industry:

Rapid Adoption of cloud services for operational dexterity:

Cloud computing has become an enabler of digital business transformation. Harnessing the advantages of cloud can develop dynamic and robust infrastructure that enhances operational efficiency by accelerating the service delivery process. Boundaries between business processes and clinical services can be erased by connecting people across the formerly siloed structures while simplifying access to information. For example, a Canadian hospital has successfully streamlined its clinical processes to offer seamless enterprise workflow while simultaneously reducing the implementation time through cloud services of IBM® BlueWorks Live (a business process management software - SaaS). The cloud is highly efficient for healthcare providers to leverage a consumer driven approach to achieve long-term growth with improved ROI.

Big data analytics in reshaping the dynamics of the healthcare sector:

Big data proactively helps to combine information about a business through various channels such as online transactions, social media, e-commerce portals and unravel trends for future use. For the healthcare sector, big data is facilitating a lesser rate of medication errors, better preventive care, and accurate staffing.

• Better preventive care: A substantial number of patients who step into the emergency rooms are often known as "frequent flyers" as they account up for twenty-eight percent visits. Big data helps to recognize these people and develop preventive plans to keep them away from returning.

• A lesser rate of medication error: With patient record analysis, big data easily flags any inconsistencies between prescribed drugs and patient's health. It can then alert the medical practitioners when there is a potential risk of error.

• Accurate staffing with predictive analysis: Predictive analysis being a part of digital transformation services helps clinics and hospitals to estimate future admission rates and allocation of proper staff to deal with patients. This approach helps to save money while minimizing the emergency room wait times.

Role of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare:

Artificial intelligence is another nascent digital transformation implementation in the healthcare sector, which can emulate humans in decision making and processing critical information. Artificial Intelligence has definitely opened up new avenues of digital innovation in healthcare application by enhancing the accuracy and speed of diagnosis. With the implementation of data analytics, medical practitioners can now use different approaches to treatment. AI-powered body scans can now identify chronic diseases like cancer in the early stages, thus bringing down the mortality rate. For example, during the outbreak of Ebola scare, AI was implemented to scan existing medication to explore the chances of reformulating them. This helped to discover an effective treatment against the deadly virus. It has been estimated that by 2020, the average expenditure on artificial intelligence by healthcare providers would touch fifty-four million dollars.

Telemedicine solutions for nations with large populations

Telemedicine has emerged as the most important aspect of digital transformation services in the healthcare sector. When it comes to larger countries with huge population like India, China, and the USA, where the access to healthcare services is restrained, telemedicine can play a pivotal role. In the present scenario, where the wait times have been increasing, telemedicine can offer a seamless access to specialists for patients from all locations. The growth opportunities of telemedicine in Digital Transformation Solutions have now become everlasting with the launch of wearable gadgets. This has enabled real-time monitoring of patients without admitting them to the hospital.

Conclusion:

To succeed and thrive in the new digital landscape, healthcare providers must create more customized patient care that offers real-time care and accessible visual demonstration of data. For organizations to thrive in a digitalized industry they must begin generating ideas and implementing digital transformation strategy, to generate a business model to facilitate their operational capabilities and organizational strengths.

Diya works for Cigniti Technologies, Global Leaders in Independent Software Testing Services Company to be appraised at Cmmi-Svc v1.3, Maturity Level 5, and is also Iso 9001:2015 & Iso 27001:2013 certified.