Connect Technology to Quality of Care

Connect Technology to Quality of Care
Healthcare providers may see IT and patient care as separate issues, but digital transformation has a significant impact on how healthcare organizations deliver and are reimbursed for better patient outcomes.
Value-based care is a fundamental change to the way care has traditionally been delivered. As with many things in the technology space, it centers around the ability to capture and report on data. Organizations need to demonstrate that the quality of care and the way they delivered care at a lower cost was better for the individual, and better for the population.
For healthcare IT professionals, the challenge is how to systematically deliver information rather than just data because data alone can’t improve outcomes. We have to build systems that allow for data correlation to demonstrate that the organization has improved the quality, rather than the quantity, of care to patients and populations.
As part of this change, healthcare organizations also need to implement systems that help them integrate and correlate patient data such as demographics, psychographics, social media activity, behavioral patterns, clinical history, office interactions, etc. This expanded information set lets organizations generate 360-degree views of their patients and populations, along with the insight to deliver value-based care that is truly patient-centric.
The role of leadership in digital transformation:
While having a robust framework in place can speed up the digitisation process, it isn’t enough. A McKinsey research report reveals that less than one-third of all digital transformation efforts succeed globally, even for digitally savvy sectors like media and tech. The success rate is even lower for other sectors.
The biggest challenge to achieving widespread transformation is reluctance from the employees to accept new technologies or policies. The company’s size is a huge factor too; the larger the size, the harder it can be to convince the workforce to accept the change.
When leading digital transformation in your company, it’s your responsibility to foster enthusiasm among the employees for the transformation opportunities.
Here are some tips to follow if you are implementing a new digital transformation strategy within a company:
1. Have customer-focused business objectives
You shouldn’t implement digital transformation just for the sake of it. McKinsey research says that businesses focusing on tech as an end goal are more likely to fail in their transformation efforts.
You should instead try to determine how technology can help you serve your customers better. Having customer-focused goals for transformation can help managers pick the technology that can truly help a company transform.
2. Don’t neglect what works
While embracing digital change can be a good goal, don’t throw out conventional management and communication techniques, especially if they work. Many traditional communication channels can bring the same results and keeping them in place will help employees feel comfortable.
Companies should try to integrate successful communication and management techniques with digital tools to make them more transparent and efficient.
3. Teams need to accept the transformation
Change often induces confusion and fear of uncertainty among employees. When companies adopt new tech to reduce costs, employees see the decision as a prelude to replacing them altogether.
One of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to get teams to see that technology can reduce their workload and help add more value to the company. Companies should invest time and resources into training teams in the technology to let them understand its worth rather than see it as a threat to their jobs.