By Ricardo Rocha, Marketing & Communication Director at Noesis
Technology has a huge presence in Healthcare services, and its contribution to the development of medicine is undeniable. Technological advances in the service of medical care have been significant, with evident gains for patients’ health. Every day we read news about these advances. The introduction of artificial intelligence in the detection of tumors or in the identification of potential Alzheimer's patients, drones used for organs transportation, microscopes with artificial intelligence that check the removal of cancer cells in just 2 minutes, surgeries performed with Hololens, robotics more and more present in medical acts, surgeries, and non-evasive treatments. The examples are endless and cope with the giant leaps that technology and innovation, with a great contribution of artificial intelligence, have caused in the improvement of healthcare services. Therefore, when talking about technology in Health, it is imperative to separate the waters. What technology are we talking about? In what scope? I propose that we focus on Digital Transformation in Health and the role of technology in the way healthcare providers provide their services. How to face the challenge of transformation and use technology to serve the customer's experience and its own efficiency?
Customer Experience
Healthcare has been adapting its consumer experience approach to models in the service areas. Healthcare consumers are, above all, consumers, impacted by the digital transformation in so many other sectors of activity, and subject to different experiences with different brands, products, and services. They are increasingly digital natives, more demanding, informed, with new consumption habits. And the same applies to healthcare experience - with a demand for greater autonomy and a better experience in interactions with the healthcare provider. It is for this reason that we are witnessing an increasing focus on the customer journey, in the healthcare sector. With the development of channels that facilitate appointment booking, exams, consultations, online order registration, self-service services, direct scheduling operations, new forms of payment, use of chatbots, among others.
The focus should be on offering a comfortable and simple service, and a fluid and appropriate experience for your consumer/customer. The digitization of healthcare processes and records, for example, to which are added some cases of success in the implementation and adoption of technology, such as the cases of electronic prescription or electronic clinical process, have contributed greatly to the improvement of this experience. Digitization in health results in the generation of health data, through medical notes, radiology images, data from monitoring devices, patient feedback, or laboratory results. Thus, data handling becomes an effective way to solve daily problems, ensuring greater quality in the provision of healthcare services. The integration of these various health records, images, videos, exams, notes, and other medical documents provides a rich and complete view of each patient. By complementing this information with data extracted from external sources, such as social, environmental, demographic, or behavioral information, it is possible to identify a set of correlations that add value to the organization and to the patient.
It is, therefore, essential to keep innovating and transforming customer's experience to new levels that allow, for example, to monitor user throughout his “journey" from prevention to treatment. The whole experience and journey in a Hospital, for example, can be reinvented. From the moment user arrives, administrative check-in, triage, referral, diagnosis, treatment, and medical discharge. The possibilities are numerous, and it will not be surprising to introduce bots, or the emergence of algorithm development projects, for example, in the process of triage and referral of patients, in the coming years. eHealth is here to stay, and the current pandemic context may be the determining factor for the implementation of telemedicine and telemonitoring in general. The Pandemic caused greater urgency in the reconfiguration of processes and operations. A recent McKinsey study, "The next normal arrives: Trends that will define 2021 — and beyond" (Jan 2021), indicates that telehealth could represent 30% of all medical activity in hospitals in the USA in the short term. Market trends lead the healthcare area to focus on engagement with consumers, with different goals:
- Create a customer-centric strategy;
- Use all data extracted from all points of interaction with the customer to make personalized decisions;
- Gather intelligent and centralized tools to change your processes at the pace of the market and your consumers.
Efficiency and Resource Optimization
Increasingly, healthcare providers, and their employees, need to explore fast and flexible analytical scenarios in order to adapt and manage their resources, which are by definition limited, in a more efficient way. The mapping of automated processes and the handling of data in a stable and high-performance manner is the way to create more fluid and adaptable work processes, allowing providers to have the ability to make quick changes and adapt quickly to sudden changes in context. The management and treatment of data become a key moment in the optimization of processes, implementation of new models, improvement of efficiency, and quality of the services provided. The ability to use the data available at the time of decision-making becomes a competitive advantage for healthcare providers. Advanced data analysis offers significant value to organizations, allowing them to have strategic planning, predictive capacity, or real-time perception of their users' path, leading to more efficient and informed decision making. In this way, organizations are able to optimize their resources. In short, a customer-centric digital strategy allows less time, human and financial resources to be consumed, while ensuring an integrated, easy, and more satisfying experience for your customer.
Originally publish (in Portuguese) in business.IT
Technology has a huge presence in Healthcare services, and its contribution to the development of medicine is undeniable. Technological advances in the service of medical care have been significant, with evident gains for patients’ health. Every day we read news about these advances. The introduction of artificial intelligence in the detection of tumors or in the identification of potential Alzheimer's patients, drones used for organs transportation, microscopes with artificial intelligence that check the removal of cancer cells in just 2 minutes, surgeries performed with Hololens, robotics more and more present in medical acts, surgeries, and non-evasive treatments. The examples are endless and cope with the giant leaps that technology and innovation, with a great contribution of artificial intelligence, have caused in the improvement of healthcare services. Therefore, when talking about technology in Health, it is imperative to separate the waters. What technology are we talking about? In what scope? I propose that we focus on Digital Transformation in Health and the role of technology in the way healthcare providers provide their services. How to face the challenge of transformation and use technology to serve the customer's experience and its own efficiency?
Customer Experience
Healthcare has been adapting its consumer experience approach to models in the service areas. Healthcare consumers are, above all, consumers, impacted by the digital transformation in so many other sectors of activity, and subject to different experiences with different brands, products, and services. They are increasingly digital natives, more demanding, informed, with new consumption habits. And the same applies to healthcare experience - with a demand for greater autonomy and a better experience in interactions with the healthcare provider. It is for this reason that we are witnessing an increasing focus on the customer journey, in the healthcare sector. With the development of channels that facilitate appointment booking, exams, consultations, online order registration, self-service services, direct scheduling operations, new forms of payment, use of chatbots, among others.
The focus should be on offering a comfortable and simple service, and a fluid and appropriate experience for your consumer/customer. The digitization of healthcare processes and records, for example, to which are added some cases of success in the implementation and adoption of technology, such as the cases of electronic prescription or electronic clinical process, have contributed greatly to the improvement of this experience. Digitization in health results in the generation of health data, through medical notes, radiology images, data from monitoring devices, patient feedback, or laboratory results. Thus, data handling becomes an effective way to solve daily problems, ensuring greater quality in the provision of healthcare services. The integration of these various health records, images, videos, exams, notes, and other medical documents provides a rich and complete view of each patient. By complementing this information with data extracted from external sources, such as social, environmental, demographic, or behavioral information, it is possible to identify a set of correlations that add value to the organization and to the patient.
It is, therefore, essential to keep innovating and transforming customer's experience to new levels that allow, for example, to monitor user throughout his “journey" from prevention to treatment. The whole experience and journey in a Hospital, for example, can be reinvented. From the moment user arrives, administrative check-in, triage, referral, diagnosis, treatment, and medical discharge. The possibilities are numerous, and it will not be surprising to introduce bots, or the emergence of algorithm development projects, for example, in the process of triage and referral of patients, in the coming years. eHealth is here to stay, and the current pandemic context may be the determining factor for the implementation of telemedicine and telemonitoring in general. The Pandemic caused greater urgency in the reconfiguration of processes and operations. A recent McKinsey study, "The next normal arrives: Trends that will define 2021 — and beyond" (Jan 2021), indicates that telehealth could represent 30% of all medical activity in hospitals in the USA in the short term. Market trends lead the healthcare area to focus on engagement with consumers, with different goals:
- Create a customer-centric strategy;
- Use all data extracted from all points of interaction with the customer to make personalized decisions;
- Gather intelligent and centralized tools to change your processes at the pace of the market and your consumers.
Efficiency and Resource Optimization
Increasingly, healthcare providers, and their employees, need to explore fast and flexible analytical scenarios in order to adapt and manage their resources, which are by definition limited, in a more efficient way. The mapping of automated processes and the handling of data in a stable and high-performance manner is the way to create more fluid and adaptable work processes, allowing providers to have the ability to make quick changes and adapt quickly to sudden changes in context. The management and treatment of data become a key moment in the optimization of processes, implementation of new models, improvement of efficiency, and quality of the services provided. The ability to use the data available at the time of decision-making becomes a competitive advantage for healthcare providers. Advanced data analysis offers significant value to organizations, allowing them to have strategic planning, predictive capacity, or real-time perception of their users' path, leading to more efficient and informed decision making. In this way, organizations are able to optimize their resources. In short, a customer-centric digital strategy allows less time, human and financial resources to be consumed, while ensuring an integrated, easy, and more satisfying experience for your customer.
Originally publish (in Portuguese) in business.IT
