A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives, a curated forum for enterprise technology leaders, nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the CIOApplications Editorial Board.
Texas Health Resources
Improving Access to Healthcare with Technology
Technology has always been the spinner of the wheel of evolution throughout all industry verticals. With the development of innovative technologies, every vertical has undergone a significant transition, mostly for the better. In this race to change, to stay abreast with advancement, the healthcare space is not an exception. In fact, over the years, companies in the healthcare arena and healthcare systems themselveshave shown organic growth in pace with the dynamic transformation within the space. In spite of this, most healthcare systems face a significant challenge with data and systems being operationally fragmented. Even though healthcare facilities abound in useful insights, most of it is not meaningfully connected to generate actionable data.
Further, the dependency of most healthcare organizations on various partners with complimenting abilities leads them to adopt point solutions, which prove to be effective at present but eventually leads to fragmentation. What becomes more of a concern is that the consolidation of all these siloed systems demands a tremendous amount of effort along with considerable capital investment. Electronic medical records(EMRs) require a multi-year implementation and are time-consuming to integrate with the existing systems.
In light of this, as Texas Health’s vice president of Digital Experience, I seea need to change the unidirectional alignment of healthcare systems with patient care by adopting a thoughtful approach toward integration. The healthcare realm needs to take heed of the fast-changing needs of consumers and patients. Their requirements are governed by their daily life activities and experiences, especially in the retail and financial sphere. They expect healthcare providers to provide them the care and interactions that are relevant to their needs, which can only be achieved through mindful choices.
See Also: Life Sciences Review
We need to take heed of always keeping patients and consumers at the center of our work to ensure we are with them at every step of their treatment journey. Integrations are ultimately aimed at making operations easier and simple for patients and consumers. The most important aspect when it comes to integrations is to take into consideration their feedback and incorporate those in an agile and accurate manner to offer relevant services to them.
Healthcare will soon adopt a predictive methodology with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in predicting the kind of care and the new treatment techniques to be employed
To further improve patient care, it is vital to choose the right partner to boost the entire healthcare system holistically. In selecting a solution provider, it is essential to focus on the aspects of subject-matter and technology expertise. Partners play a significant role in adding value to the business while ensuring outcome-driven conversations, not just directed toward changes in the healthcare systems, but also from a consumer-patient standpoint. The right partner should act as a true integrator within the workplace to bring together the clinical workplace, consumer world, and technology into one string and further enable the right workforce and enhanced customer experience. Agility should always be one of the core competencies in any collaboration. Partners catering to the healthcare space should have the fundamental approach of achievingsmall tasks oneat a time, to finally result in a fruitful overall outcome. The ultimate purpose of a partner should be their adaptation of culture change as they implement newer ways to improve the entire customer journey.
When it comes to my role in ensuring that the best in-house services are offered to patients, the biggest obstacle arises in solving the access and navigation issues for patients and consumers. The expansion of access and navigation helps patients lead healthier lives. The best way of doing this is to adopt virtual care methodologies.
We at Texas Health work to ensure an integrated workflow with a seamless interaction with consumers. To help achievethis, the organization has opted for asynchronous texting facility to communicate with healthcare providers, whether in regard to the care for those suffering from chronic diseases or for those recently released from the hospital. We are also looking at simplifying the scheduling system for patients by not just helping them fix appointments, but also helping them choose the right path based on the condition they have. This ismore like condition management-based AI technique. Apart from this, I am also looking at making the overall financial experience better and providingcaregivers the best possible support, with up-to-date records and a connected digital ecosystem, to mobilize healthcare to a great extent.
Moving ahead into the future, access tohealthcare will undergo a drastic transformation, and will be driven by the unique needs of different consumer segments for example Millennials may have a different experience with healthcare based on their current perception.There will an advent of increasing number of aggregators, to cater to the varied groups of consumers and patients. This will be instrumental in improving access to care. The insurgence of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will be used to in drive demands to the right services while offering access space and clinical testing. The increasing number of providers will initiate their connections with specialists across the industry to provide better solutions and services to clients. The distributive care provided by healthcare companies will create a connected network that will give rise to a different economic model to offer proper compensation to healthcare providers for their services. Healthcare will soon adopt a predictive methodology with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in predicting the kind of care and the new treatment techniques to be employed.
On the whole, I view the healthcare space moving from inpatient to outpatient, where care will reach to homes, clinics, community pharmacies and retail centres, according to the resources available within communities, thus changing the overall perspective of healthcare.
