By 2022, we predict 25% of healthcare consumer interactions will be digitally executed outside of a traditional care setting; while the remaining 75% will gravitate to digitally coordinate real-time health systems. Digital Health is coming of age, bringing with it new capabilities for healthcare interactions and care delivery for consumers, patients and members, and the ecosystem that supports them.
Digital Health is at the heart of every major strategic imperative facing healthcare, as it transforms to meet evolving consumer needs, shaped by experiences outside the industry. Healthcare’s digital transformation is pushing the boundaries of traditional healthcare models to drive more affordable care, provide better access, deliver personalized and contextualized experiences, improve quality and health outcomes, meet the consumer-patient-member where they are at, and innovate new products and channels to serve them.
The digitization of health experienced a fractured start, with many investing in point solutions to solve for specific problems. Telemedicine, e-visits, virtual visits, patient/member portals, are all examples of investments made to digitize healthcare.
However, what is increasingly apparent is the fact that implementing point solutions present limitations to achieving end-to-end experiences across channels and touch points. Point solutions also create barriers to improving operating models and driving real-time and prescriptive insights and actions, across a broad portfolio of disparate solutions.
Next generation digital health will seek to overcome these limitations through a more holistic and, integrated approach.
Digital Health of the future will enable experience, engagement and care delivery, in a seamless unified fashion, supported by a comprehensive digital strategy comprising and end-to-end vision and architecture; one that embraces continuous adaptation and strikes the balance between disruptive and sustaining innovation, tempered by the need to carefully extract value from existing, often substantial, technology investments.
How will we get there? The secret is in breaking down the siloes that exist in our own organizations and the catalyst to help us do that is the role of Chief Digital Officer (CDO).
The introduction of this role in healthcare is helping us think differently, focus resources around the end-to-end experiences, and strategize the future services and care we seek to deliver for our consumers, patients and members.
CDO’s are acutely aware that enhanced engagement and improved care delivery is achieved via a sustainable and flexible technology portfolio that is both integrated and innovative, and one that enables insights and visibility across the discrete interactions that occur every day with consumers, patients and members.
They recognize it takes a change in culture, governance, priorities and focus to meet consumer expectations and needs; and they know it takes this and much more to deliver on the promise of Digital Health.
So begin with the end in mind and chart your course with a Digital Health Vision and Strategy; and if you need support, innovative thinking or additional perspective along the way, our Digital Health experts at Perficient are here to help.
