As CEO, I help CitiusTech realize its vision of inspiring new possibilities for the health ecosystem with technology and human ingenuity.
In today’s hyper-connected world, you can order a pizza, summon a cab and even find your soul mate with just a few taps on your phone. So, why can’t healthcare be just as democratized and intuitive? I believe that soon, it just might be.
As affordability, access and efficiency become nonnegotiable, it seems clear that the road to healthcare’s future is paved with technology. The past few years have brought healthcare to the crossroads of rapid digital innovation, a pressing need for health equity, and an urgency to reinvent the patient experience. How we navigate these emerging frontiers today will likely shape the future of healthcare delivery for years to come.
Prioritizing Health Equity
Despite scientific and commercial advancements, health equity is still a major stumbling block. Be it hidden biases, decades-old systemic issues or escalating costs, these problems are putting a dampener on the quality and accessibility of healthcare, especially for marginalized communities. While digital health holds promise in bridging some of these gaps, digital divide—especially among the elderly and low-income communities—can exacerbate inequities.
Health disparities already cost $42 billion in lost productivity per year. If left unaddressed, it could cost the U.S. $1 trillion in annual healthcare spending by 2040. Addressing the barriers to health equity will most likely be an important agenda for all healthcare players. I believe a strong data and technology infrastructure plays a big role in tackling this persistent problem.
Think about the Covid-19 vaccination rollout. Timely and accurate insights helped identify the impacted communities, neighborhoods and age groups quickly, and supply chains could be redirected to address availability issues. On the patients’ side, apps like VaccineSpotter directed patients to available vaccines in real time, a matchmaking that helped counter the pandemic more quickly and effectively. There’s a lesson for us in there: Technology can be leveraged for equitable health solutions, with the patient at the heart of it all.
Putting The Patient First
Patients across demographics are no longer passive recipients of care. They want to take charge of their health, demanding transparency, inclusion, convenience and personalization. In my experience, patients today seek not just medical services but also holistic health experiences.
What’s more, well-engaged patients usually have better outcomes. For instance, managing chronic conditions with better patient engagement can result in fewer hospital visits and cut down on long-term, high-cost hospitalizations. A great example of this is an initiative by Baxter to transform kidney care. With a focus on driving at-home dialysis, Baxter’s Vantive is expected to revolutionize self-performed peritoneal dialysis with connected systems that allow doctors to remotely and securely monitor patients and adjust treatment plans. This should result in improved accessibility, ease of use and better quality of life for patients and clinical outcomes.
Transforming patient experience demands a shift in mindset—from intervention-heavy care to value-based care, from disease management to health management, from episodic interventions to continuous health engagement, and from information asymmetry to shared decision-making. And I believe that at the core of this transformation lies data-powered digital innovation.
Riding The Wave Of Digital Innovation
Digital adoption in healthcare is at an all-time high. Telehealth utilization is 38 times higher than before the pandemic. Vaccine development time is cut short to months instead of decades, and wearable tech like Fitbits and smart contact lenses are turning people into personal health monitors. But while the way forward may be digital-first healthcare transformation, how does one get started on this journey?
1. Curate comprehensive data. Delve into your data reservoir to understand the key barriers to digital innovation, health equity and a superior patient experience in your patient population context. The important thing is to find the right data. I recommend strategizing to acquire health equity insights and comprehensive patient intel from social determinates of health (SoDH) and behavioral health data. This might require tapping into communities, home health services, etc. to build a comprehensive picture.
2. Spot the story in the gaps. Perfection is an evolutionary process. Frequently audit your current processes, technology and patient demographics to understand the scope for improvement. Look beyond the numbers and see the whole narrative for a good perspective on health equity.
3. Prioritize strategic action. Use the insights from step two and tools like a three-by-three matrix to prioritize actions. I recommend choosing one or two high-priority areas—ones that are feasible with your current resources and have a high potential impact—and acting on them. Then, make data-driven insights a part of your clinical and administrative workflows.
4. Invest for better outcomes. Consider allocating resources to your prioritized initiatives. This could mean financial investment, commitment of staff time for training, or physical space for new technologies. You can also invest in creating awareness, educating people on unconscious behaviours, and creating ways to make new technology practical for patients to implement as per their social situation.
5. Measure impact. Put measures in place to gauge the impact your efforts are making on patients’ lives. Monitor closely for any challenges or barriers, and be prepared to iterate and adapt as necessary.
Finding Balance
While digital adoption is at an all-time high, we must ask ourselves, “Is it streamlining the patient experience and addressing their primary pain points, or is it overwhelming them?” Otherwise, chasing the latest tech trend only leaves behind a complex web of ill-suited solutions.
I believe the success of digital innovation lies in prioritizing investments to address the most pressing concerns, getting stakeholders on board, and gaining a deep understanding of what your organization needs to prioritize. For instance, current economic pressures are creating a dire need for healthcare organizations to manage internal costs. Technology can streamline administrative tasks to drive efficiencies and cut costs while improving experience. Addressing these foundational issues may be essential to the path to equitable, accessible care.
There is work to be done to implement the next level of data strategy and expand our scope of data from standard data sets to nonstandard data sets like social and behavioral data. This will likely require stakeholders to unite and securely share data with regulatory compliance. And transforming patient experience needs a culture that’s patient-centered, empathetic, transparent and digitally convenient. But when the reward is healthier, empowered patients and a future-proof healthcare system, I believe the hustle is worth it.
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