Impact of Digital Transformation in Healthcare Industry

By Veritis

Impact of Digital Transformation in Healthcare Industry

Healthcare is not an exception when it comes to how much the digital revolution has an impact on overall performance. Today, it is crucial for the healthcare sector to deliver better patient care digitally, wherever the patient may be. Digital transformation consulting services in the healthcare industry are around implementing cutting-edge technology intended to boost productivity while also elevating patient care to a new level.

The COVID-19 pandemic hastened the confluence of various trends in the healthcare sector, most notably the preference for convenience and accessibility among consumers. As a result, leading health systems to go with digital business transformation strategy to improve consumer adequacy while altering their business practices, corporate culture, and technological approach.

There are growing opportunities in the diagnostics and healthcare sectors related to digital transformation services.

As internal hospital procedures are improved and, most significantly, all patient demands are met through the adoption and application of cutting-edge technologies. Digital transformation technologies in healthcare represent a fundamentally new method of providing treatment. Technology is actively used in transforming healthcare companies to optimize benefits for patients and staff.

Resources are required to expand digital health capabilities. In addition, the extraordinary challenges that health systems face are likely to inform and supplement efforts to expand digital business transformation infrastructure throughout health systems to improve performance.

To achieve and maintain a general level of well-being and to create actual medical and diagnostic instruments. Digital health technologies use computing platforms, networking, software, and sensors.

The availability of enormous volumes of data results in a new method of health information and marketing in the original healthcare environment in that digitization is changing. All stakeholders in the area, including government agencies and private businesses, are working towards this healthy goal.

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Why is Technology Advancing So Quickly in Healthcare?

The healthcare sector has undergone some of the most significant transformations in the recent decade. Both technological advancements and economic upheaval are responsible for these shifts. The accelerating change phenomenon is why technology is developing so quickly. Stronger generations of technology are developed faster since each technical advancement might lead to the next. In addition, since each generation of technology improves upon the previous one, new technology gets developed more quickly.

Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Digital Transformation in Healthcare

1) Telemedicine

Do you still recall making an appointment with your doctor and waiting a few hours in the hospital or clinic? Then, you would need to wait a few days after the tests were completed before you could see the doctor again.

Patients’ communication with medical providers is changing due to numerous creative digital healthcare solutions. For instance, Telemedicine solutions give customers on-demand access to medical professionals and allow them to do everything from finding a doctor to booking a virtual appointment and communicating with them over a voice or video chat.

One of the most remarkable changes in the US healthcare industry is the evolution of telemedicine. Telemedicine rapidly develops in large nations like the USA, where healthcare practitioners have limited access. 90% of healthcare executives who were asked said that their firms have begun developing or implementing a telemedicine system.

Virtual appointments between patients and physicians are one of the best uses of telehealth technology. Such appointments help people communicate with doctors in remote or rural locations where access to healthcare is limited. In addition, patients with physical limitations can communicate with medical specialists using telemedicine.

Telehealth technology can use IoT-based health sensors and wearables to manage high-risk patients and give medical practitioners remote access to monitor the patient’s symptoms and activities.


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2) Making Use of Big Data in Healthcare

Big Data is revolutionizing how we utilize, analyze, and manage data across all industries. For instance, healthcare is one potential area where technology may use to prevent diseases, improve quality of life, lower treatment costs, and predict epidemic outbreaks.

Healthcare providers can gather enormous amounts of data and determine the most effective methods for using it. As a result, healthcare organizations may benefit and save lives by using big data.

Emerging technologies have made it simpler to gather crucial healthcare data and transform it into insightful information that can use to deliver better treatment. As a result, healthcare workers may anticipate problems and find digital healthcare solutions before it’s too late by using data-driven insights.

Let’s examine the benefits that big data can offer to the healthcare industry

A) Forecast of Patients for Better Staffing

The question of how many employees to have on duty at any given moment is one that shift managers in the transforming healthcare industry frequently encounter. Of course, you run the risk of new labor expenditures and resources if a manager keeps fewer employees. But on the other hand, having too few employees can also lead to poor customer service that may harm the patient’s health.

Big Data can help with this problem. It is possible to anticipate how many patients will visit the hospital or clinic daily and hourly using data from various sources. For instance, four hospitals in Paris that are a part of Assistance have used a range of sources, such as ten years of hospital admission records, to generate daily and hourly forecasts of the number of patients likely to be at the hospital at any one time.

As a result, forecasting patient admission rates, data collection, and pattern discovery can help to enhance staffing.

B) Real Time Alerting

Real-time alerting is another essential application of big data analytics in healthcare. For instance, hospitals utilize clinical decision support software to instantly evaluate medical data and guide healthcare digital health transformation professionals so they can make educated decisions. In addition, the adoption of wearable technology allows for continuous collection and cloud storage of patient health data. For instance, the system can instantly alert the doctor if a patient’s heartbeat suddenly spikes so that the doctor can intervene to bring it down and contact the patient.

IoT devices produce enormous amounts of data, so applying intelligence to it might assist healthcare professionals in making crucial decisions and receiving real-time alerts.

C) Informed Strategic Planning Using Health Information

Strategic planning is made more accessible in the healthcare industry by big data. For instance, the outcomes of patient check-ups in various demographic groups can be analyzed by healthcare managers. They can also determine what prevents people from seeking therapy.

Informed digital transformation consulting services strategy planning can be done using data for healthcare digital transformation initiatives.

D) Avoiding Human Errors

Experts have frequently been seen to either dispatch a different drug or unintentionally prescribe the incorrect medication. By examining prescription drug and user data, big data can use to lower such errors. The big data transformative healthcare application allows for monitoring prescription data gathered from various medical specialists. The software can highlight prescription errors made by any doctor, potentially saving countless lives.

3) IOT

Before the Internet of Things, in-person visits and texts were the only means of contact between patients and doctors. Therefore, there needed to be a method for doctors or hospitals to monitor the patient’s condition and take appropriate measures continuously.

IoT-enabled gadgets offer remote monitoring in the healthcare sector, unleashing the potential to keep patients healthy and safe and enabling doctors to deliver better treatment. In addition, it has enhanced patient satisfaction and engagement since it has made interactions with doctors more effective.

Furthermore, minimizing readmissions and reducing hospital stays are two additional benefits of remote patient monitoring. IoT also helps patients get better treatment results and lowers transformative healthcare expenditures.

It transforms the healthcare sector by altering how people connect with those offering digital healthcare solutions. IoT in healthcare benefits patients, hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies.

A) IoT for Physicians

With IoT sensors integrated, physicians can track their patient’s health in real-time using wearables and home monitoring equipment. IoT enables medical practitioners to be more vigilant and proactive when interacting with patients. Doctors can choose the best course of therapy for patients and obtain the desired results with the help of data collected by IoT devices.

B) IoT for Patients

Patients can obtain individualized care thanks to gadgets like the heart rate monitor cuffs and fitness bands that are wirelessly connected. IoT devices are used to track a variety of data, including blood pressure, heart rate, steps done per day, calories burned, and much more. Elderly patients benefit from IoT since it allows for real-time remote monitoring. In addition, concerned medical professionals and family members receive a notification via an alert mechanism.

C) IoT for Clinics and Hospitals

IoT devices in hospitals are not limited to monitoring patient health. Medical equipment, including nebulizers, wheelchairs, oxygen pumps, and other devices, are tracked in real-time using IoT devices with sensors implanted. Infection propagation is a problem that hospitals must also deal with because it is a significant worry. IoT-based hygiene monitoring tools help shield patients from contracting the virus. For instance, intelligent IoT-enabled cameras can identify whether patients wash or sanitize their hands before consuming food or medication or whether visitors are not seated close to the patient.

IoT devices can also assist in managing assets, for instance, by monitoring the temperature and humidity of a refrigerator storing medicines.

D) IoT for Health Insurance Organizations

Health insurers can conduct their underwriting and claims processes easily using IoT-connected equipment. Insurance firms can identify false claims and spot potential underwriters using data collected from health monitoring devices. In the underwriting, claims administration, risk assessment process, and pricing, IoT devices bring transparency between customers and insurers.

Insurers can keep customers by offering incentives for using and sharing health data collected by IoT devices. For instance, if people keep track of their regular activities and maintain a healthy lifestyle, they may offer rewards. It will assist insurers in significantly lowering claims.

With data produced by IoT devices, insurers may also validate the claims.


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4) Virtual Reality

A person can hear, see, and interact with virtual reality using specialized gear, such as headsets, employing virtual reality technology, which uses computer-generated simulations of 3-D images or environments.

The transformative healthcare sector embraces virtual reality to provide patients with better care. For instance, one of the patients received chemo every week for around six years to treat colon cancer. During the 4.5 hours of the chemo session, she used to read books, talk to people, or watch TV.

Virtual reality is rapidly expanding, and it is anticipated that this trend will continue in the future in settings like clinics and operating rooms. According to Globe Newswire’s analysis, the market for virtual reality in healthcare is expected to reach USD 7 billion by 2026.

Since VR technology is still in its early stages in healthcare, the sector has begun to understand its potential applications and potential problems.

How VR can benefit the healthcare sector is as follows:

A) Pain Reduction

A virtual reality headset was part of a program at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, for kids who needed operations like stitches, sutures, and foreign body removal in emergency rooms.

Children did not feel any pain at any point during the activity, which delighted parents whose kids were content and cooed through it without fuss. As a result, many medical facilities are using virtual reality technology for pain relief treatments.

B) Accelerating Healing in Physical Therapy

Patients’ physical treatment sessions can be made more fun with VR by immersing them in a simulated setting. For instance, one study found that children with cerebral palsy experienced a noticeable improvement in their mobility following VR therapy.

One of the top companies offering virtual reality physical therapy, Neuro Rehab VR, has developed a gamified physical therapy method. In addition, the business has created VR training exercises tailored to the patient’s therapeutic needs using machine learning.

VR is commonly utilized in physical therapy to expedite recovery in this way.

5) Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence makes the lives of doctors, patients, and hospital staff easier by performing jobs that people would often complete at a fraction of the cost. And in a fraction of the time.

AI is reimagining and reviving modern healthcare through machines that can perceive, predict, learn, and act, from detecting connections between genetic codes to operating robots that assist in surgery, monitoring chronic conditions, and doing risk assessments.

Compared to clinical judgment and conventional analytics, AI offers a variety of benefits. When learning algorithms interact with training data, they can become more exact and accurate. It enables people to learn previously unattainable information on treatment variations, patient outcomes, and diagnostics.


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Here are some ways AI is positioned to lead to successful digital transformation services in the healthcare industry

A) Error Detection and Reduction

Medical mistakes and incorrect sickness diagnoses caused 10% of all deaths in the US. AI is one of the most intriguing technologies that can potentially enhance diagnostic procedures. However, deadly human errors might occur due to heavy caseloads and insufficient medical histories.

However, AI can forecast and diagnose illnesses faster than trained medical personnel. For instance, in one of the trials, an AI model employed algorithms and deep learning to diagnose breast cancer more frequently than 11 pathologists.

B) Vaccine and Drug Creation

Let’s first examine the drug development cycle to better grasp how AI influences the development of medications. First, researchers identified the disease-causing target protein. Then, they spend much time actively examining such proteins. A high chance of losing money on the incorrect protein exists otherwise. The research protein then looks into a molecule or substance that might impact the protein.

To correctly identify the disease-causing protein, the chemical should be able to change the protein. Only safe and beneficial compounds are advanced for developing pharmaceuticals, with unsuccessful compounds being discarded. AI enters the picture because the entire procedure is manual and time-consuming.

Conclusion

Due to ongoing digital transformation trends, new trends are constantly developing in the healthcare sector. Therefore, you must look beyond the technology required to generate innovation while pursuing successful digital transformation in healthcare.

Whether you want to start your corporate digital transformation journey or need guidance along the road, the Stevie Award winner Veritis will then support you by guiding you through implementing digital transformation.

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