Stimulated by Covid-19, we have witnessed an unprecedented digital transformation of healthcare, and a healthcare system that has not been able to innovate quickly to deal with the risks of this “new normal” has been left behind. Although the core principles of growth, financial management, and quality remain the same, health systems must adjust strategies to win consumer loyalty while providing differentiated value.
Digitalization makes these transitions possible, forcing organizations to rethink and reconfigure their structures and operations. In short, the health system must shift from “digital” to “digital.” British Airways, The digital transformation partner of the health system, has designed 4 major initiatives to provide a roadmap for health systems that want to embrace digitalization and become a leader in healthcare.
Major move #1: Owning a ramp
The health system can only provide a certain number of visits per day, and the consumer experience is centered on health care supply rather than their personal preferences. As more and more disruptors and technologies enter the industry, we are seeing a shift in healthcare: If the care they want or need is not available, consumers with choices are likely to go elsewhere.
Our “Own the Onramp” encourages the health system to create a flexible supply and demand model. In this model, consumer demand—not health system supply—is the driving force. To create a digitally focused on-ramp, the sanitation system should consider the following factors:
- Building a digital front door: Create an integrated digital access point in the system with consumer-centric functions, digitally search and schedule appointments, virtual classification of symptoms, navigation to the correct care location, and access on-demand virtual visits. These functions can be presented through guided interactions such as chat, text, voice, or system websites or applications.
- Think of the digital front door as a market: This approach may include dynamic pricing of expired inventory, sales to third-party websites, transparency of services and pricing, and convenient payment.
Having an on-ramp allows the health system to gain access by improving the convenience and choice of consumers throughout the care process, while optimizing existing assets and transcending geographic boundaries to gain share.
Big action #2: Super personal care arrangement
The general health system provides services to most patients as if they are the same, making the best medical and administrative decisions based on fragments of information. The lack of personalization causes consumers to face challenges in dealing with complex healthcare.about 7% of consumers switch healthcare providers Due to lack of experience, the average annual loss of revenue per hospital is at least US$100 million.
Step 2, “Ultra-personal care orchestration”, first establish a strong data foundation to develop the “n-of-1 view” of consumers. Through this initiative, the health system can:
- Stitch together the data of individual individuals (not market segments or populations) across clinical environments, transactions, behaviors, and health information to gain insight into consumers.
- Personalize digital interactions (text, chat, voice) at their digital front door. The latest digital technologies in this field actively learn from previous patient interactions to create an ever-evolving personalized experience.
- Develop a broader and more comprehensive care plan, and develop personalized and proactive care interventions to predict consumer needs.
Move #2 will enable the health system to provide a consistent and continuous consumer experience, enabling them to earn loyalty, secure future income, and possibly earn additional upstream income.
Big action #3: double the specialist nursing
Traditionally, the health system has competed locally for special care cases, which is a key driver of profitability and sources of competitive advantage. They are now facing new threats that try to disrupt the recommendation model and drive down prices. As consumers bear a larger share of health care costs, their demand for “shopping” non-emergency professional services is increasing. This demand is consistent with the increase in industry price transparency.
Major initiative #3, “specialty care doubled down” means investing in a digital, frictionless specialty care experience for patients, providers, payers, and employers. It is concierge-level professional care, involving patients, experts, referral providers, and nursing teams, and is carefully planned by digital. In order to implement this initiative, the health system must:
- Use data to coordinate and speed up work processes and care pathways in non-acute care settings (even at home). The new digital care model must be designed in a specialist and disease-specific way.
- Establish transparent communication and information sharing with referral providers to inform them of the progress of care and eliminate friction. Missed professional nursing referrals result in a 10% to 30% loss of income, which is equivalent to $160,000 per doctor.
- Buy, build and collaborate to create digital solutions for surgical care orchestration. These tools guide patients through the care process from preoperative to postoperative, aiming to reduce readmissions, no-shows, and cancellations on the same day, and improve the satisfaction of the clinical team.
A health system implementing Move #3 will improve access, optimize its assets and footprint, and ultimately establish a “future service line” to coordinate care across multiple professions and locations of care, while improving patient, provider, payer, and employer Satisfaction is in an increasingly transparent and shopable market.
Big action #4: New works
The traditional healthcare operation model is based on manual, labor-intensive processes, which reduces operational efficiency and increases costs.Some industry estimates indicate 25% of the total cost of the health system It can be attributed to these mainly administrative expenses.Solving these problems systematically can Reduce nearly 300 billion U.S. dollars in healthcare costs each year, Enabling the health system to provide more value to payers and employers, and to position itself as an essential network provider.
Big Move #4 turns the concept of “new jobs” into reality, transforming these core operating processes, tasks and assets into an automated platform for optimizing cost structure and delivering value. In order to successfully carry out new work, the health system must:
- Construct an effective enterprise-level automation strategy and provide an assessment of the current back-office functions. These functions should be benchmarked compared to other digital priority industries such as finance or retail.
- Use automation to supplement human capabilities and exponentially shift costs out of the system, especially in labor-intensive and error-prone tasks, such as clinical staffing. The automation of auxiliary workers can greatly reduce management functions while increasing the speed and reliability of tasks.
- “Acquire physics by integrating digital and physical operations”. A flexible service delivery model that spans physical and digital media operations can expand network coverage, improve patient acquisition and retention rates, and increase capital flexibility.
Performing the “new job” will generate sustainable competitive advantages, allowing the health system to earn profits by redesigning its operating chassis and related cost structure, and ultimately making the health system vital to payers and employers.
Numbers in action
These movements are indeed huge and complicated, but as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The health system must now act on these major initiatives. Each of these initiatives can be constructed into a roadmap that is meaningful to the specific needs of the organization, with basic projects that increase the return on investment from the beginning and quick wins.
Photo: Madmaxer, Getty Images
