From the March 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
These companies realize that the modern age is a time of scarce attention and abundant connectivity, where smartphones are our primary access point to everything, where money is digital, where the interface layer is where the profit is and where providing a slick, best-in-class human experience will create the most profound business. What these companies have all learned is that new technology is everything, and it’s essential for every company and every person to be cognizant of the possibilities it provides.
Technology is not oil to lubricate. It is oxygen to grow ideas and change business. Modern businesses need to disrupt themselves at the very core, empowered by what new behavior and new technology make possible. Health care companies need to re-evaluate their roles in catering to 21st century consumers. Health insurance companies need to use technology to become health partners. Banks need to become health care payment solution companies. Why didn’t a national health insurance company invent Oscar? Or a leading geriatrics hospital start ChenMed or a major health system launch TelaDoc?
Digital transformation is not about a digital department. A chief digital officer won’t save your company. It is not the role of any additional unit to take your company from irrelevance to leadership. It’s a philosophy that all must adopt. It’s not having a better app than your competitor, it’s to reconsider the entire value chain and relationship with consumers over their lifetime. If you’re a hospital, use technology to bring to life everything that care delivery and personalization can be in the modern age.
There are numerous examples where technology is added at the edges. I can use a decent app to review my health plan benefits, out-of-pocket expenses and look up doctors in my network. But that’s it. If I want to find a provider with the highest rating or change wellness programs, it’s a painful series of phone calls. Using technology in a deeper fashion would send me recommendations based on my clinical and claims history. More advanced technology may incentivize prescription adherence, routine tests and preventive care. These are ways to connect the entire value chain across the extended enterprise and boost patient satisfaction significantly.
You don’t need a head of digital health or a digital department. In fact, you should banish the word "digital" as an entirely redundant word. You don’t need a digital health strategy. You need an inside-out digitally transformed health care organization.
About the author: Bipin Thomas is a renowned global thought-leader on consumer-centric health care transformation. Thomas is a board member of HealthCare Business News and chairman of ICURO, a digital business outcomes management organization, where he is redefining personalized care delivery by connecting all stakeholders in the emerging health care ecosystem.Back to HCB News
