The healthcare industry continues to evolve rapidly from IoT-powered wearables to online prescriptions and medication delivery. Healthcare professionals now diagnose, treat, and keep track of their patients differently because of this wave of digital revolution.
The ability to streamline operations, enhance patient care and experience, and reduce expenses overall is now available to enterprises with clarity and a strategic approach. It would be interesting to see the medical industry become more digital. Let's examine each of its components in more detail to learn how you might profit from this development.
Digital Transformation In Healthcare: What Does It Mean?
Utilizing cutting-edge technology to improve patient-centricity in medical care is the core concept behind the digital transformation of the healthcare sector. Clinicians, hospitals, and other healthcare service providers can improve accessibility, manage and collect patient data, and prescribe and treat patients more effectively. Of course, they aren't the only digital solutions available in this sector.
By 2030, the global market for digital health is projected to be worth US$ 586.59 billion, expanding at a CAGR of 16.80%. Everyone, from doctors to patients, is already enthusiastically accepting this move.
Some of the best examples of digital transformation in healthcare are SaMD (Software as a Medical Device), online health records, telemedicine, appointment management, and AI-powered medical equipment.
How Does Digital Transformation Enhance Medical Care?
The increased accessibility of medical treatment and assistance is among the biggest advantages of digital transformation. It keeps evolving how medical institutions, practitioners, and patients conduct administrative tasks and receive care.
Digital solutions assist in addressing a larger range of difficulties, while the worldwide lockdown era highlighted the need for better and more accessible healthcare choices. They aid in work automation and service streamlining, enhancing productivity and drastically lowering expenses.
This is how digital transformation helps achieve the objective of enhancing medical care.
1. Keep a Check On Chronic Diseases
The rise in chronic diseases has recently put a strain on healthcare systems around the world. According to a previous WHO report, non-communicable chronic diseases are responsible for 74% of all fatalities worldwide. This quantity might rise as the population ages.
Using digital technologies can aid in the more effective detection, monitoring, and treatment of such disorders. maintaining the sustainability of the medical systems. Premature deaths and the start of such illnesses among the elderly population can be avoided with prompt action.
2. Facilitate Personalized Care
Patients increasingly demand better, more convenient, and individualized care from healthcare companies as a result of the information and technology landscape's rapid expansion and accessibility. As a result, more people are willing to migrate to digital platforms to access medical care and help.
For instance, telehealth utilization rose 38X from the COVID-19 baseline, according to a McKinsey survey. Additionally, 40% of them claimed they would keep using these platforms in the future. Of course, to satisfy these demands, healthcare service providers need to develop efficient solutions.
3. Dealing With Staff Shortages
A future shortage of qualified healthcare personnel is predicted by numerous surveys. Medical professionals experienced physical and emotional exhaustion during and after the pandemic in many parts of the world.
Digital transformation in the healthcare sector can help protect human resources even as the need for ongoing, efficient medical treatment increases. By automating processes and tasks, it will lessen the need for human engagement.
4. The Need to Reduce Overall Cost
Medical institutions face a problem in keeping up with infrastructure, technology, and reimbursement requirements. Financial investments frequently fail to produce better results because of administrative difficulties and other flaws. The biggest gains, however, can come from increasing operational efficiency based on data-driven insights.
Therefore, the future may be more promising if healthcare systems concentrate on cautious and well-planned digital transformation.
Quick Tips For Successful Digital Transformation In the Healthcare Industry
While there’s a need for addressing and implementing futuristic solutions at the earliest, making it a success requires careful planning and flawless implementation. To ensure positive results with your best effort, here are a few important tips for successful digital transformation for healthcare organizations like yours.
1. Set Clear Goals
Be aware of your goals and the reasons for undergoing a digital transformation before you start. Create an operating model that reflects the structure, governance, and technological landscape of the future. Show exactly how the travel should appear. Find out how your company's healthcare services improve the customer experience and how you plan to improve it through digital transformation.
It is simpler to succeed if the big picture is understood. All of the management actions, procedures, and records should be interconnected and self-organizing.
2. Build Service-oriented Software/Applications
Developing concepts for customer and administrative user-specific targeted services is a crucial next step after defining your goals and priorities. Real-time insights may be used to reevaluate workflows, processes, and end-to-end activities that need to be automated, tailored, or virtualized.
You'll get greater results by utilizing data sciences, customer experience design, and agile development methodologies. You will be guided in making these choices and carrying out your goals by a dependable development partner like us.
3. Modernize Existing Digital Resources
You and other healthcare organizations/service providers should continue to evaluate and update your digital assets and IT infrastructure. Legacy systems that are complex and out-of-date can hinder the seamlessness that you anticipate from a digital transformation. To ensure continuous and consistent outcomes of digital transformation, it is essential to update your current software and modernize your IT underpinnings.
4. Strengthen Core Operations And Management Capabilities
Maintaining and bolstering your organization's basic functions is essential if you anticipate transformation on a bigger scale. You must evaluate the number of employees needed, their skill levels, training needs, and other requirements. The most effective usage of the applications you intend to adopt as part of your digital transformation is ensured by having the correct team within the firm.
Best Ways to Implement Digital Healthcare Solutions
Different types of digital healthcare solutions can be implemented across various verticals to improve efficiency, patient care, and experience. This is the ultimate goal of digital transformation in the healthcare industry after all. If you’ve ever been questioning how you can implement digital solutions to enhance your healthcare services and medical care, we’ve listed down some of the best ways to do so.
1. Patient Portals
One of the main applications of digital healthcare technologies is this. Access to vital information is quick and accessible thanks to patient portals. Both patients and doctors can benefit from these platforms:
- Review health records
- Check prescriptions
- Schedule/manage appointments
- Access health reports
- Share data easily
For many healthcare systems, patient portals continue to be the key vehicle for involvement. You can achieve a lot by putting into practice a competitive, trustworthy solution.
2. Telemedicine And Virtual Visits
The most significant changes have been in telemedicine and virtual doctor appointments, particularly after the pandemic. Approximately 83% of patients, according to a survey, are open to using telemedicine. Many firms have begun putting digital transformation methods into practice, requiring patients to regularly do virtual visits. Therefore, developing tools that enable online prescription filling and virtual doctor appointments will keep patients involved and satisfy their desire for convenient treatment.
3. Healthcare Wearables
Instead of going to doctors, people are now actively seeking out handy ways to monitor their health and prevent illnesses. The number of people who are health conscious has grown dramatically, which has led to an increase in the appeal of wearable medical devices. Patients and healthcare practitioners can benefit greatly from the incorporation of cutting-edge technology into these devices.
These products are commonly used as oximeters, heart rate monitors, fitness trackers, etc. Real-time metrics and data can be made more accessible through the use of wearable technology in the healthcare industry, in addition to many other advantages.
4. Connected Ambulance
While the patient is being carried to the hospital, these systems gather data from wearables, sensors, and HD cameras and share it with the medical professionals. This helps greatly because doctors can get all the necessary data before the patient even arrives at the hospital. In this manner, doctors may start the treatment right away and can even direct the paramedics as they transport the patient.
5. Disease History Analysis
To examine a patient's medical history and provide better treatment The healthcare industry continues to evolve rapidly from IoT-powered wearables to online prescriptions and medication delivery. Healthcare professionals now diagnose, treat, and keep track of their patients differently because of this wave of digital revolution.
The ability to streamline operations, enhance patient care and experience, and reduce expenses overall is now available to enterprises with clarity and a strategic approach. It would be interesting to see the medical industry become more digital. Let's examine each of its components in more detail to learn how you might profit from this development.
Top 7 Trends For Healthcare Digital Transformation
Technology and innovation have made a significant impact on the healthcare industry, revolutionizing medical practices to a great extent. Healthcare service providers who are focused on strengthening their startups and medical care facilities should be aware of the emerging tech and how to use it in the best way. Here are the high-rising technologies and trends for digital transformation in healthcare.
1. On-Demand Healthcare Services
The healthcare industry continues to evolve rapidly from IoT-powered wearables to online prescriptions and medication delivery. Healthcare professionals now diagnose, treat, and keep track of their patients differently because of this wave of digital revolution.
The ability to streamline operations, enhance patient care and experience, and reduce expenses overall is now available to enterprises with clarity and a strategic approach. It would be interesting to see the medical industry become more digital. Let's examine each of its components in more detail to learn how you might profit from this development.
2. Use Of Virtual Reality
The modern healthcare ecosystems have been playing a significant role in virtual reality. Particularly in nations that battle with the dangers of a drug crisis, it is utilized to treat chronic pain, PTSD, stroke, and other conditions. Everyone, from doctors to pharmaceutical companies, is using VR to develop strategies and improve care and treatment.
3. Medical IoT
Medical IoT is evolving quickly despite its many challenges. In 2023, the global medical IoT market is anticipated to be dominated by the North American region. Medical IoT is widely used and ranges from straightforward tracking solutions to intricate automation. It serves as a cornerstone for modern hospitals that are committed to enhancing productivity, offering patient-centered care, and achieving clinical excellence.
4. Big Data
The healthcare industry is prepared to make use of big data's advantages to see significant growth. Big Data offers several advantages to healthcare organizations by transforming both structured and unstructured data into insightful information. Fewer prescription errors, personnel analysis, and strategy planning facilitation are a few of these.
5. Artificial Intelligence
By increasing diagnosis accuracy, providing practical treatment options, and optimizing patient outcomes, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to completely transform the medical sector and its offerings. It is frequently utilized for applications in diagnostic tools, drug discovery tools, and customized medicine.
6. Telehealth
Telehealth is transforming the way patients and doctors communicate by providing features like video conferencing, remote patient monitoring, virtual appointments, etc. To watch patient activities and control any dangers, telehealth systems can be combined with wearables and IoTs.
7. Voice Technology
The healthcare sector won't be an exception given the rise in the use of voice search features by individuals for most of the things they want to perform. Voice-search-capable EHR systems are being implemented by some businesses to help with administrative work and clinical intelligence. Finding a doctor, physical therapist, hospital, clinic, urgent care facility, etc., is one of the local search use cases for voice search in healthcare that makes up 65.9% of all use cases.
You can guarantee that you'll meet patients' expectations for convenient medical care and get the finest results by utilizing these technologies and trends.
There are several benefits and problems associated with the digital transformation of healthcare. However, if you have a trustworthy growth partner at your side, you may complete the journey.
