The healthcare industry is facing growing challenges in meeting demand. Ageing populations and increased life expectancy are putting immense pressure on hospitals and medical facilities to treat patients efficiently. While technology is the obvious solution to improving productivity and delivering patient-focused care, it is complicated to integrate into preexisting systems. Adding to this, professionals can be slow to enact change within organisations and often lack digital skills.
Digital transformation enables healthcare providers to overcome these challenges by developing new digital tools, systems, and skills within their organisations. Not only to meet soaring demand but to improve quality of care across the board.
What is digital transformation in healthcare?
Digital transformation in healthcare involves integrating digital technology such as electronic health records (EHRs), telemedicine, AI, and real-time patient monitoring.
It’s not just about adding shiny new tech gadgets to hospitals, though. Digital transformation requires a complete overhaul of healthcare systems and processes. From the way patient care is delivered to the storage of data, it is a shift in the way hospitals operate. The results are life-changing for patients as they reform the efficiency and quality of healthcare institutions that embrace digital transformation.
The world population is expanding and ageing rapidly, in large part due to longer life expectancy. Elderly adults generally suffer from numerous and complex health conditions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 88% of older adults have one or more multiple chronic conditions.
This statistic alone highlights the increased pressure on healthcare providers. Innovation and change through digital transformation is the solution to combatting this stress on the system.
The role of digital tools in improving patient care
Digital tools can dramatically improve the quality of care for people, delivering a more patient-centric experience. The results of which lead to higher satisfaction and better health outcomes.
Streamlining personalised care
The number 1 goal for healthcare professionals is to improve the quality of care. Rather than just focusing on delivery methods, enhancing personalised care helps to meet the demands of individual patients. This enables clinicians to address specific needs and conditions to provide better healthcare outcomes.
For example, leveraging electronic health records and predictive technology enables doctors to tailor treatments based on patient-specific data. This tailored approach delivers numerous benefits to the overall system – improving efficiency and reducing unnecessary treatments while optimising resource usage.
Increased access and equity
Health equity is about ensuring fair opportunity for all humans to access high-quality healthcare. Telemedicine slashes this barrier to healthcare, whether it’s psychiatry help, chronic disease management, or other services. Digital transformation reduces the disparity, enabling doctors to deliver care to patients who historically have been underserved. Patients can receive optimal medical assistance regardless of their location or situation.
Increased efficiency
Efficiency is crucial in healthcare. As we have already discovered, an ageing population is outnumbering the youth. It’s creating a healthcare labour shortage and compounding the stress on many healthcare systems around the world.
Using digital solutions helps to deliver timely care for patients and maximise the number of people doctors can treat. In particular, it enhances the administration of healthcare tasks such as:
- Streaming appointment scheduling
- Coordinating work schedules to meet demands
- Maintaining up-to-date patient records
- Automating notes and claims processing
- Ensuring regulatory compliance
Challenges in implementing digital transformation
Healthcare organisations are often large and complex environments. Hospitals, for example, provide thousands of treatments, from emergencies to routine outpatient procedures. This throws up several challenges to properly implement digital transformation.
Data security and privacy
Data interoperability has always been a challenge for medical providers to overcome. Often, physicians are working with an incomplete picture of a patient’s health. A problem that leads to reduced patient care quality. Solutions like cloud technology solve this issue. It streamlines patient records while reducing costs and mistakes.
Europe is improving its maturity on the eHealth indicator. EU27-average overall composite score increased to 79% from 72% last year. It is clear that European citizens want quick, easy access to medical records. But for this, the data has to be secure. It’s easier to hack in the cloud, making cybersecurity a real issue for hospitals to find the balance.
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) mapped healthcare cyber incidents between January 2021 and March 2023 and identified the key targets of attacks, the threat actors behind them, attack trends, and the impact that cyberattacks have on the health sector. A range of healthcare entities experienced cyberattacks over the two-year study period, including health authorities, bodies and agencies, and pharma firms; however, the majority of attacks targeted healthcare providers (53%), especially hospitals (42%). Implementing robust cybersecurity measures and compiling with growing regulations like GDPR is crucial to addressing these challenges. The rewards are huge though, allowing healthcare systems to realise the benefits of digital transformation fully.
Systemic obstacles
Resistance to change is common in most workplaces. Overcoming systems, practices, and habits built over decades is a thorn in the side of managers and organisations.
Digital transformation relies on support at every level of healthcare, from board rooms to nurses to admin. All stakeholders need to be aligned. It’s not enough to simply buy new technology and instruct staff to use it. New systems require design and implementation in the workplace. It’s a real challenge.
This requires the expertise of companies like ERNI, who deliver tailored solutions for implementing digital transformation.
Skill shortages
Technology moves at lightning speed, creating a real skill gap for new and experienced medical professionals. Doctors and nurses trained over different decades aren’t necessarily comfortable with digital tooling.
Hospitals need to invest in staff training initiatives to upskill workers in using the latest technology. In addition, there is a need to recruit for skills not usually found in the healthcare industry, such as agile methodology, computer science, automation, change management, and data analysis. While they’re not directly related to medicine, the skill requirements of all healthcare staff will evolve over the next few years.
Conclusion
Digital transformation will transform healthcare. It’s more efficient, patient-centric, and cost-effective. More than this, though, it’s necessary. Life expectancy continues to grow and will continue to do so with the integration of health tech. Sp solutions like AI will be needed to cope with growing pressures.
ERNI is at the forefront of driving healthcare innovation, enabling healthcare providers to incorporate digital tools into their systems. We improve the patient experience using software innovation for diagnostics, medical technology, and intelligent medical devices.