COVID-19 pushes hospitals to focus on digital investments : Survey

According to a recent Frost & Sullivan survey, the healthcare sector is focusing on accelerating information technology (IT) investments to meet the quadruple aim of improving patient experience, reducing costs, improving health outcomes, and improving clinician experience. This has encouraged healthcare organisations to invest in digital health solutions.

According to the report, more than half of hospitals are increasing their information technology (IT) spending to deal with the problems posed by the COVID 19 epidemic.

The survey had a total sample size of 349 and included IT decision-makers from hospitals, medical practices, and residential care. It revealed that improving customer experience (CX) and operational efficiencies are top priorities, which healthcare organizations aim to attain by deploying digital health solutions.

“Leveraging cloud-based IT has become a priority to capitalize on the vast new resources of clinical, financial, socioeconomic, and other data generated across the health ecosystem and captured by electronic health records (EHR), connected medical devices, smartphones, and wearables,” said Alpa Shah, VP – CX Practice at Frost & Sullivan.

“Healthcare companies can use robust data sets to develop new insights, which help improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare and deliver new, innovative IT solutions that engage consumers,” Shad added.

Informing that data visualization tools are the top transformative technologies used today and will be the highest priority for investment over the next two years,Shah said, “Artificial intelligence (AI) will be vital to enhance organizations’ enterprise communications and contact centre capabilities. However, dealing with security concerns continues to be a top obstacle for IT departments, which is a crucial factor for consideration when purchasing any solution over the next two years.”

According to the study, industry participants should focus on the following development possibilities in the healthcare area as investments in digital solutions increase:

Over the next two years, digital systems that track healthcare personnel and patients will gain traction. Patients will be assessed, treated, and tracked via virtual visits and remote patient monitoring (RPM), keeping them out of the hospital. Predictive analytics will also detect hotspots before they get established.

Each hospital must discover the right mix of human vs. artificial intelligence. Investing in AI technologies will assist the firm in achieving its key priorities of improving customer experience and increasing operational efficiency.

Telemedicine is in high demand due to on-demand access to care. The focus on behavioural health will become more prominent, with a strong emphasis on “whole health” wellbeing.

Medical technology need in hospitals will increase. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will be able to collaborate with providers on new patient management models as a result of chronic illness cases and a backlog of elective operations.