Actions that will Boost Frontline Engagement and Retention

The Impact of Digitalization on healthcare Industry 

With an evolution in technology, various sectors have transformed, integrating modern tools and services to increase efficiency and end-user reach. Healthcare and medicine have benefited from the technological advancements making them easily accessible to everyone. The adoption of digital tools can help lower the operational cost by $100 billion every year. 

 Digitalization has also increased the number of healthcare users by enhancing the user experience, adding to their convenience, and shifting the manual workload to automation, lowering the rate of human errors. The internet has aided the healthcare infrastructure by helping users get consultations online and access various services like digital health records, pharmaceutical products, appointments, and medical support.  

Significance of Digital Transformation of the Healthcare Industry 
 
Ease of access: 

Through mHealth tools like medication management and remote patient monitoring, a patient can remotely access life-saving medical protocols, emergency treatments, and other benefits such as lesser traveling, lower costs, and quick diagnosis followed by treatment.  

Non-urban locations with scarce medical help can benefit from Digitized Healthcare, as it requires low monetary compensation, has a high response rate, and patients have to incur less to no traveling. 

Improved Diagnosis: 

Amidst the increasing complexity of medical emergencies, efficient and impromptu response to such help is the need of the hour. Integrating IoT with healthcare and AI screening enables accurate monitoring of a patient's physical health and allows physicians to provide a more optimized diagnosis. Insider Intelligence's Digital Health Ecosystem report says 83% of the adults in the US want to use telehealth even after the pandemic. 

Optimized patient experience: 

Healthcare providers can create a personalized patient journey with far better treatment plans and follow-up routines by collecting patient data and using analytical tools.  

Connected care refers to the union of technology with a personalized patient experience, offering real-time communication between the patient and the healthcare provider.  

A study by Grand View Research states that the digital health sector is estimated to grow with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 15.1% by 2028.  

Five applications of Digital transformation in the healthcare sector 

1. Digital patient records: 

Electronic Health Records (EHR) refers to the digital patient database collected from hospitals, diagnostic centers, and pathology laboratories, easily accessible to users over the internet. With the discovery of EHR, the healthcare industry has benefited as it reduced the workload of storage, paperwork, and security of patient documents. 

Hospitals and patients can access the EHR without time constraints and share patient data with other practitioners over the internet.  

     2. Big Data utility: 

Instantaneous data collection from healthcare branches such as clinical trials, diagnosis, epidemiological studies, and EHR is called Big Data. It is a giant umbrella comprising various sources of data collection in the healthcare sector and using analytical tools to provide executable items for medical practitioners. This helps create a much more personalized patient journey and allows doctors to diagnose better.  

Other sources for Big Data include patient portals, payer records, wearable devices, genetic databases, smartphones, and public records. Professionals process data from these sources and are used in machine learning projects, medical applications, and other pharmaceutical research projects.  

Another essential tool of digitized healthcare is Health IT. Health IT deals with data management and collection for patients and medical professionals. It refers to the information technology tools and services integrated with an individual's health.  

    3. mHealth: 

Fitbit, Apple Heart Study, Google Fit, and Samsung Health are a few good examples of tools supported by mHealth. Mobile Health (mHealth) is the medical and public health practice over mobile devices.  

mHealth is supported by remote monitoring, healthy-living apps, and clinical & diagnostic apps. Complex data can be collected and processed for predictive analysis through real-time tracking of a user's health. 

   4. Telemedicine: 

Telemedicine enables patients, healthcare providers, and medical professionals to interact virtually over the internet. This allows the doctors to prescribe medicine, take follow-ups, routine check-ups, and diagnose and prescribe other forms of treatment such as therapy to their patients without any compliance to physical presence.  According to Deloitte, about 80% of doctors believe telemedicine to be a better solution for chronic diseases.  

By Consulting over the internet using tools such as zoom calls, OMD, Updox, and Teledoc, patients can cut costs compared to a physical visit. Patients feel more satisfied using the service at the convenience of their house.  

   5.IoT: 

In addition to the healthcare infrastructure, the Internet of Things (IoT) can provide monitoring solutions to both patients/ users and medical professionals. Doctors can use IoT to diagnose better with better accuracy using sensors. Patients can use smart bands, smartwatches, smartphones, and other devices supported by the IoT for real-time monitoring of various health aspects, from sleep cycles to heart rates.  

 Hospitals and other healthcare facilities can use IoT by infusing the sensors to track medical equipment and hygiene-monitoring systems to maintain the standards to admit patients seamlessly.  

 In conclusion: 

 Healthcare is transforming through digitalization. Digitalization has changed correlations between various sectors within healthcare, be it Big Data or mHealth; the user journey has been optimized in every possible way. During the pandemic, the use of telemedicine jumped from 11% to 35% within six months, indicating the adaptiveness and convenience of digitized healthcare.  

With the speculation that global healthcare will reach $10 trillion by the end of 2022, it is safe to assume a considerable amount will be dedicated to the sector's digital transformation. The transformation for digitalization is eminent, but the transition is of a much more relaxed pace.  

Companies and organizations can get assistance from consulting firms to smoothen the process of digitizing the infrastructure of their healthcare facility. Aviskaran provides consultation services and helps companies transform digitally through data consulting and cloud consulting services.  

Book your consultation now to enable your Digital Transformation. 

Written By:
Aviskaran Team
Content Writer, Aviskaran Technologies