The healthcare industry is on the cusp of a transformation similar to that witnessed by the banking industry 15 to 20 years ago.
Like healthcare, banking is a very personal yet highly regulated industry that once thrived on in-person visits. The industry started to shift in the late ’80s and early ’90s with the infancy of digital banking and then took a giant leap forward with the introduction of smartphones in 2007. The American Bankers Association says online banking officially became mainstream in 2011, and today, the bulk of in-person visits to brick-and-mortar banks are largely transactional.
Shifting to today’s healthcare landscape, an increasing number of visits to brick-and-mortar care providers are similarly episodic. This has created an opportunity for stakeholders to build a digital framework that transforms the industry, a health system in the cloud focused on understanding what individuals are doing between visits. The idea is to harness the power of digital tools and cloud-based systems to create solutions that understand the root cause of healthcare needs to ultimately revolutionize care delivery, improve outcomes and reduce costs.
The ‘must-haves’ in the next step of healthcare delivery’s evolution
As the healthcare system evolves and expands to become a more all-encompassing experience, there are three things the industry must focus on to make it work.
1. Holistic patient management: A connected digital healthcare system would integrate various aspects of a patient’s health into a unified view, a more comprehensive approach that would improve the quality of care and reduce treatment costs. A connected digital ecosystem enables treatment for the whole person, not just their symptoms. Imagine a physician connecting a patient to Mental Health services as they struggle through behavior changes to address a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. A connected digital ecosystem can enable this type of personalized care.
2. Outcome-focused solutions: The power of digital tools is the amount of data they produce between visits. A patient’s adherence to a care plan can be monitored in real-time, and provider quality can be assessed continuously. Compared to brick and mortar, digital barriers to achieving a meaningful outcome can be addressed longitudinal instead of episodicly. Further, this improves accountability throughout the ecosystem so that all healthcare consumers can gain access to high-quality care.
3. Comprehensive, high-quality networks: Enabling holistic patient management and outcomes-focused solutions requires a comprehensive, high-quality network. Too often, point solutions are treated as just that — points of care. To truly unlock the power of digital health, these solutions must be curated into a comprehensive network that can steer back into a brick-and-mortar specialty. A single-point solution does not have the breadth to impact medical loss ratio; a network of point solutions does.
Embracing these pillars gives the industry the best chance to provide more effective, efficient, and patient-centered care, ultimately leading to better outcomes and a more sustainable overall system.
Integrating digital tools with traditional care
We know that an overhaul of healthcare will be a gradual shift and not a flip of a switch, but one of the primary keys will be seamlessly integrating new technologies with existing care models. There is an abundance of exciting innovation taking place that should be viewed as complementary to traditional care and enhance its effectiveness rather than replacing it entirely.
One of the most promising aspects of a more cloud-based health system is the potential to offer cost-effective alternatives to traditional procedures. Providers can utilize remote monitoring, telemedicine, and AI-driven diagnostics to achieve comparable or superior outcomes at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods.
Digital tools can also significantly improve the efficiency of specialty care. By implementing sophisticated triage systems, providers can ensure that only patients who truly need specialized services are directed to these resources. This approach optimizes valuable specialist time and reduces unnecessary costs due to over-referral. This process may involve using chatbots for initial symptom assessment, remote consultations for minor concerns, or personalized health coaching through mobile apps. It all gets back to addressing health concerns at earlier stages through digital means when appropriate to reduce the burden on physical healthcare facilities and resources.
While it presents a significant opportunity to enhance care delivery, integrating digital tools with traditional care must be approached…
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