The Future of Healthcare
In the next three to five years, we’ll see immense advances in health tech. These aren’t just your usual incremental advances but rather a leap on a new innovation curve. Rapid progress is happening in patient experience, wearables, AI, predictive healthcare, and more. Finding and integrating technologies that drive healthcare digital transformation requires finding best-fit digital solutions.
Olive’s Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends Shaping the Future of Healthcare
1. Improved Communication Between Providers and Patients
In 2024, providers will have more efficient and personalized communication with patients. Thanks to digital transformation, patients will have access to their own health data and will be empowered to make better decisions about their care. Solutions such as Patient Experience Platforms can help achieve this.
As health care rapidly evolves, patient experience becomes more efficient. From improving scheduling and check-ins to minimizing paperwork, offering remote visits, sharing lab results, and providing two-way communications with providers in between visits, healthcare organizations and tech are finding new ways to provide a positive care experience.
Health systems consider digital capabilities a path to fundamentally transform their relationship with consumers. A recent Deloitte report stated that respondents hope to achieve better patient experience (92%) as the top desired outcome of digital transformation. This customer-centric approach will improve patient experience and improve newer forms of care delivery using digital technology.
2. Enhanced Security and Privacy Measures
When it comes to patient data, security must be top of mind. Recent data breaches support this. Healthcare data breaches are becoming more common, and a key aspect of healthcare is security. It’s crucial that healthcare organizations have enhanced security measures in place. We expect to see healthcare organizations putting greater emphasis on the protection of patient data in 2024. We expect to see hospitals and health insurance providers beginning to adopt biometric authentication, encryption and additional security measures like two-factor authentication before then. More regulations will be put in place to ensure the privacy of patient data.
3. Telehealth and Health Content Advance to the Next Level of Maturity
As private and public entities fund telehealth research studies, digital health leaders expect to see more energy behind evidence-based telehealth. This will answer questions around patient targeting, the use of remote teams, and whether telehealth is an option or being used to address access issues.
4. AI Innovations
Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than just a digital transformation trend in healthcare: it represents medical innovation. The healthcare AI-powered tools market is expected to exceed $34 billion by 2025. Chatbots are streamlining the process of serious illness determination and freeing up valuable human time. Optimizations of inpatient and outpatient systems are helping to improve two of the least efficient processes in modern medicine. These are vastly improved by automated medication reminders, the digital front door, and even personalized dosage recommendations. Adopting hyper-automation allows healthcare to benefit more than most.
5. Predictive Healthcare Data
Predictive healthcare can forecast illnesses and diseases that will become major problems in the near future. Information aggregated through Big Data and other marketing sources can help healthcare companies develop healthy lifestyle recommendations for their patients. Predictive healthcare models can be used to anticipate the next big health scare and help governments, healthcare professionals, and companies prepare. The predictive analysis could also help hospitals decide when to hire temporary staff due to impending outbreaks of colds and flu that could result in a worker shortage.
6. Blockchain
Blockchain is a digital ledger or a computerized database of transactions. Shared across a network of computers, it allows customers to safely exchange financial information with suppliers, without the need of a third party such as a bank. Blockchain technology will soon play an instrumental role in keeping electronic health records accurate and safe. According to a recent report, healthcare blockchain is expected to reach $890.5 million by 2023.
The next healthcare frontier is the metaverse, which combines DeFi, NFTs, decentralized governance, decentralized cloud services, and self-sovereign identity. There are already companies working on creating metaverse platforms geared towards healthcare. For healthcare, the next phase will be the creation of a comprehensive meta-health ecosystem. Key features will include collaborative working, education, clinical care, data monetization, and gamification.
7. EHR Systems
Electronic medical records, managed with EMR software and electronic health records, handled by EHR software, have revolutionized the way patient records are entered and processed. The future of EHR is promising for patients and the ease of providing superior care by physicians and medical facilities using digital technologies. In the coming decades, we expect significant growth in accessibility, integration, and interoperability between EHRs and EMRs.
As health care rapidly evolves, patient experience becomes more efficient. From improving scheduling and check-ins to minimizing paperwork, offering remote visits, sharing lab results, and providing two-way communications with providers in between visits, healthcare organizations and tech are finding new ways to provide a positive care experience.
Health systems consider digital capabilities a path to fundamentally transform their relationship with consumers. A recent Deloitte report stated that respondents hope to achieve better patient experience (92%) as the top desired outcome of digital transformation. This customer-centric approach will improve patient experience and improve newer forms of care delivery using digital technology.
How to Choose the Best EHR (Electronic Health Record) System in 2023
8. On-demand Healthcare
As patients increasingly desire on-demand healthcare because of their busy lifestyles, the healthcare industry is entering a new era of digital innovation. Mobile applications are becoming increasingly popular, with statistics showing that more than 50% of all web browsing worldwide occurs on mobile devices as of 2018. On top of this, four billion people are on the Internet globally, adding to the possibilities that digital transformation in healthcare offers.
9. Big Data
The application of big data analytics in healthcare has positive and life-saving outcomes. Big-style data refers to the vast quantities of information created by digitizing everything that gets consolidated and analyzed by specific technologies. It will use specific population health data within a healthcare context and help prevent epidemics, cure disease, cut costs, and more. For the healthcare industry, big data can provide several important benefits, including:
- Lower rate of medication errors – software can identify inconsistencies between a patient’s health and drug prescriptions, flagging the problem to health professionals and patients when there is a potential risk of a medication error.
- Facilitating Preventive Care – a high volume of people coming into emergency rooms are recurring patients, accounting for up to 28% of visits. Big data analysis could identify these people and create preventive plans to reduce the volume of their visits.
- More Accurate Staffing – big data’s predictive analysis could help hospitals and clinics estimate future admission rates, which helps these facilities allocate the proper staff to deal with patients. This saves money and reduces emergency room wait times when a facility is understaffed.
10. Wearable Medical Devices
It’s clear that the pandemic has accelerated the healthcare industry’s digitalization, and this is particularly evident with wearable technology. In the digital age, patients increasingly focus on prevention and maintenance and seek out information about their health more consistently. Consequently, healthcare companies continue to invest in wearable technology devices. These can provide up-to-date monitoring of high-risk patients to determine the likelihood of a major health event.
According to a recent report, the wearable medical device market will reach more than $27 million by 2023.
Healthcare Digital Transformation Trends for 2024 and Beyond
These healthcare trends are shaping the industry today and will do so in a big way tomorrow.
They’re all powered by digital transformation, a process that hinges not just on strategy, planning, and change management but collaboration with key stakeholders, to identify what solutions each group needs. Then it’s just a matter of enjoying the benefits.
