Part 1 of our Deep Dive into healthcare’s digital transformation

The pandemic has accelerated the evolution of digital healthcare. We’re seeing a broader spectrum of care solutions applied, including virtual, digital, retail, and in-home. From back-office processes to patient-facing experiences, digital technology is driving rapid transformation. Yet despite a threefold increase in patients using virtual care, few are actually satisfied with the quality of that care.

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How can healthcare organizations create seamless experiences that build convenience, trust, and loyalty? ThoughtForm has joined with digital solutions firm SDLC Partners to conceptualize new ways to address digital healthcare. Weaving together strategy, technology, and culture, we’re reframing digital healthcare with design thinking as the catalyst.

Recently, our teams came together to discuss three challenges affecting health plans, provider organizations, pharma, and healthcare technology companies:

1. Fielding blended healthcare models that integrate digital and traditional care delivery
2. Optimizing healthcare processes through digitization and automation
3. Creating welcoming entries to digital channels for patients, providers, and employees

Over the next several weeks, we’ll examine each of these challenges in detail, and offer strategies you can use to meet them.

 

Challenge 1:
Fielding blended healthcare models that integrate digital and traditional care delivery

The future lies where digital care integrates with physical care—witness telehealth’s sevenfold growth rate anticipated by 2025. Many organizations are rethinking the idea that patient care starts with face-to-face interactions and are taking a digital-first stance. Marketing and financial officers are completely rethinking how they engage consumers, conduct work, and deliver care through a blended model.

• 83% of healthcare CFOs say that consumer engagement is an increased priority for their organization after the pandemic
• 78% of those CFOs are increasing spending on digital technologies, and shifting resources to support virtual capabilities versus brick-and-mortar
• Moving ahead, care delivery will become more blended among channels like in-person, remote, in-home, and virtual

What’s our take on this trend?

Consumers and providers have been forced to adapt to telehealth to reduce the pandemic-related risks of in-person care. The abrupt necessity of this shift has cleared a major hurdle in the acceptance of this new technology.

Health systems and payers quickly spun up remote monitoring and video capabilities. These systems enhance collaboration with complex patients and capture greater efficiency than traditional brick-and-mortar care delivery.

The future of blended care models across delivery channels will require a hard look at technology, operational processes, people, and experience to ensure a seamless overall system of care. Mapping the consumer journey, touchpoints, and technical and experiential requirements will be mandatory for success.

What’s our advice to healthcare organizations?

• Don’t try to perfect your digital experiences. Instead, focus on optimizing your blended model. Maintain that broad perspective.
• Aim to deliver the right services to the right patient via the right channel—whether digital or traditional.
• Embrace innovation, but recognize that not all innovation is created equal. There is a nuanced range of useful innovation, from disruptive to incremental.
• Apply design thinking to view services through both a patient and a provider lens. This allows the best solutions to bloom in a user-centered culture of collaboration and delivers the expected ROI.
• Reward agility and flexibility in care delivery. Allowing workarounds and empowering providers to problem-solve will help maintain a positive and efficient experience during times of change.
• In order for new models to take root, it requires a cultural adaptation process. An organization that helps teams adapt can accelerate past competitors and market disrupters.

How should your post-pandemic digital transformation look

This merely scratches the surface of what’s currently happening in healthcare. We want to explore what trends could mean for your organization.

ThoughtForm and SDLC Partners have created a strategic partnership to help healthcare organizations quickly develop services, technologies, processes, and experiences that fit both their consumers and the enterprise.

Together, we offer a new approach to delivering innovation that addresses strategy, technology, and culture—all powered by design thinking.