Healthcare payers and providers are striving to move toward a more patient-centric, value-based, connected – and ultimately digital – healthcare ecosystem. But, when it comes to the progress being made, it's a good news/bad news scenario.
The good news is that by 2020, the majority of providers (78 percent) and payers (74 percent) believe the use of digital technologies will enable them to make more meaningful contributions to patients' lives. This could range from ensuring that critical coverage doesn't slip through the cracks of a bad process handoff, or saving the lives of at-risk individuals through better digital information.
Further, more than half of providers (59 percent) believe they will collaborate better with colleagues, thanks to digital technologies and approaches, and a similar percent of payers (58 percent) believe digital will enhance work satisfaction.
Now, the bad news: Healthcare payers and providers foresee a huge amount of work to do, with only one in 10 executives saying they are even moderately ahead of their peers in other industries when it comes to reaping digital benefits.
These are just a few findings from a recent study on the changing nature of work and what it will take to succeed in the digital era. Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work — in conjunction with the renowned economist Nouriel Roubini — surveyed 2,000 top executives at leading companies around the world, including 348 healthcare payers and providers.
The Potential for a Digitally Connected Future
In an era when the far-reaching potential to improve how all of us – and our children – are treated, new approaches for work have never been more urgently needed to ensure lasting changes take hold. But, among healthcare payers and providers, this will require a major break with the status quo – and a major shift for an industry that has traditionally been cautious and even jaded about digital change.
Both payers and providers must move out of their seeming malaise of digital inaction that threatens to further throw into disequilibrium, the balance between payers and providers, and those who rely on the care that both provide. Stakeholders are being forced to look to new, innovative ways to transform work, specifically to foster vastly improved health outcomes at significantly lower prices in an economically sound way.
The key technology game-changers, according to our study, will be big data/analytics, automation (through both software and hardware robots) and artificial intelligence (AI). By 2020, these technologies will dramatically change the concept of how healthcare is delivered, namely through telemedicine, robotic-assisted surgery and AI-augmented diagnosis and prevention. The notion of a "digital house call" will also become more mainstream; already, the number of virtual physician visits is growing as rapidly as reimbursement and state regulations will allow. Further, "high-tech, high-touch" processes will enable physicians and other clinicians to do what they do best.
At the same time, trends such as healthcare consumerism and personalization are driving the industry to master digital, in order to reshape and transform with the customer at the center. Digital duos like "the doctor and the bot" are changing the game for the future of work for healthcare providers. In fact, it's becoming increasingly the case that plugging diagnostic tools into a smartphone is the digital equivalent of "the doctor is in."
All of these technologies, study respondents believe, will also force their employees (and themselves) to make greater strategic contributions to work and amplify their ability to collaborate with others.
New Skills Needed
As healthcare delivery changes, so will the skills needed. Providers emphasized a need for greater technical expertise (95 percent) and greater collaboration (92 percent). Additionally, 94 percent of payers believe workers will need to enhance their collaboration skills as they work more closely with smart machines to augment job effectiveness.
To move themselves in a digital direction, healthcare executives will need to more tightly align their leadership skills of today with the analytics skills of tomorrow. For example, while more than 60 percent of payers and providers believe leadership is the most important skill today that will shift by 2020, 82 percent of providers and 74 percent of payers will emphasize analytical and customer care skills.
Demand for analytical skills will see dynamic, outsized growth, as payers leverage their datasets with algorithms to receive better payment terms, as well as encourage their members to engage in preventative healthcare, avoid risk and reduce loss ratios.
Digital Economics
Crucially, new digital approaches are what's needed to help healthcare providers and payers drive down the costs of healthcare – and compete with new "born-digital" entrants. While so far, only about 25 percent of respondents have actually saved any money as a result of their digital initiatives, the cost picture for healthcare respondents does improve through 2018, as costs are expected to decrease by 2.4 percent — one of the largest decreases of any industry included in the study.
There is a far larger, untapped opportunity in cost reductions; companies are using software robots to decrease healthcare payer costs by as much as 90 percent for some middle-office business processes.
Sophisticated digital technologies are helping to drive down some of healthcare's highest cost categories – without sacrificing critical healthcare staff. This is a great development for all participants, as patients are empowered to concentrate on their personal wellness, while permitting caregivers to focus on caregiving.
On the revenue side, digital is also helping healthcare players compete with nontraditional competitors that offer completely new approaches to healthcare. Respondents expect digital to yield an 11 percent top and bottom-line improvement in 2018, which is double today's revenue impact of 5.2 percent. By 2020, 69 percent of healthcare providers and 73 percent of payers believe that 20 percent or more of their revenues will originate from digital channels.
The Digital Mandate
Call the new and necessary work ahead for healthcare a new, digitally-driven "Hippocratic Schematic." At a time of increased patient, media and government scrutiny (and epitomized by $600 EpiPens), the healthcare industry may yet be ready to deliver the convenience and service that consumers regularly experience in other parts of their lives. Those who lead the charge will use digital approaches to succeed.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.