The digital transformation in healthcare involves an array of stakeholders as well as regulatory and cultural change. Five "realities" emerge for discussion in a post from David Lee Scher, MD, at Healthcare Talent Transformation.
Among them:
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"Build it and they will come" doesn't necessarily work. Process and workflow changes must accompany the adoption of new technology, as physicians are painfully finding out with the adoption of EHRs, Scher writes. Technology also requires cultural change, with providers and patients both buying into disease-management plans.
As an example, EHR adoption brought inefficiencies for residents at both Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno, Calif., and Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona, Calif. The average time it took them to see patients and chart the visits grew from 21 minutes to 37 minutes.
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New business models are required. New partnerships may be required for companies to increase value, and a value proposition might apply to some potential customers and not others. For example, he points to accountable care organizations seeing more value from IT and monitoring products than some other providers.
A recent report from PwC Health Research Institute, for instance, noted that traditionally, medtech companies weren't concerned about patient satisfaction, but may have to get closer to the patient to manage innovation in the future. They risk being displaced, it said, by new rivals more integrated into the care delivery continuum.
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Government mandates are both blessings and curses. The Meaningful Use mandates have created a huge EHR industry, but many are still struggling to achieved the promised benefits and up to one-third of dissatisfied customers are swapping out systems two years later.
A Black Book Rankings survey found up to 17 percent of physician practices plan to ditch their current electronic health record system in 2013, which it has dubbed the "Year of the Great EHR Vendor Switch."
- Success is ultimately related to a positive impact on consumers/patients. Traditional ways of measuring benefit for technology may not be apparent, creating a need for new metrics to be developed.
To learn more:
- read the post