15 Sep The 4 top accelerators of healthcare’s digital transformation
Last Friday, Becker’s Health IT Report published the responses from 20 of the nation’s top healthcare chief information and innovation officers on their “bold predictions for health IT in the next 5 years.” It was an illuminating report, capped by Mayo Clinic Platform President John Halamka, MD‘s insight that, “We were talking about healthcare in 2030. But what we are seeing now is that 2030 is going to arrive in 2021 because COVID-19 has reshaped the culture and the policy around the use of technology, and anything we thought would take a decade to do is going to be an expectation for next year.”
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS, IN 5 “MINI-BLOGS”, Mimi will highlight some of the forecasters’ most salient points in four key areas:
– Remote first; Care everywhere
– Greater Patient Engagement on their Healthcare journey
– Implementing Medtech Solutions Beyond AI
– Aligning Healthcare’s Economic Buyers
Resoundingly, the dominant theme of most of the predictions as to where health care will be going – if not already arrived – was…
Remote first solutions
“Over the next five years, we will see IT departments start to develop ‘remote first’ solutions that will be focused on enabling clinical care from just about anywhere. Remote care that is agile enough to adapt to the next pandemic, social uprising or whatever else the future has in store for us,” according to Adam Gold, CTO of Children’s Hospital of Orange County. We’ll be focused not on thinking outside the box, but on ignoring the box all together.”
Joel Klein, MD, SVP/CIO of University of Maryland Medical School adds: “Half of all healthcare will be virtual.” On overcoming the two big barriers to adoption: “Payers: they may pay less, but if they pay enough, it will be enough.” And, “I want to see my doctor” will be trumped by the “convenience factor – once you really start doing it, it overwhelms most of the physical presence upsides.”