Technological advancement is transforming healthcare service delivery by enabling superior patient care through greater accesses, collaboration and interactivity. Mobile apps are rapidly making inroads into healthcare with 96% clinicians using medical reference apps to support their work. Research shows that use of advanced imaging technologies has tripled in the last decade – from 5% to 17%. In addition, 76% of enterprises have witnessed significant improvement in business performance by deploying wearables’ in their day-to-day operations. Is your healthcare organization taking the logical step in enhancing customer experience and offering efficient services by embracing emerging technologies?

Doctors at Roswell Park Cancer Institute are performing robot-assisted surgery to treat cancer patients. St. Luke’s University Health Network is using real-time insights to provide high quality patient care. With increased demand for granular health information and need for superior services, rapid technology adoption can be a key driver of value creation for your organization.

Revolutionizing healthcare with emerging technologies

Innovation in information gathering, treatments and research is providing medical practitioners with fresh ways to deliver healthcare services. Integrating health data in your healthcare systems drives efficient clinical collaboration and helps in better diagnosis Physicians can access patient’s medical and health records anywhere, anytime through handheld devices such as tablets, PDAs and smartphones to make timely decisions. Parkland Hospital in Dallas has invested $80 Mn in digital technologies to create a ‘smart hospital’ where devices talk to each other and doctors can access hospital communication systems through their smart phones.

Harnessing the potential of wearable, IOT and sensors, can also help you optimize costs and improve care. Cloud computing and virtualization drive streamlined workflows and reduce time. According to Frank Hsu, acting chairman of the department of neurological surgery at UC Irvine Health, imaging technology has helped surgeons map the brain before surgery. This has made neurosurgery faster and efficient. Technology is also enabling doctors to transform the medical treatment procedures. Nanobots are being developed to destroy bacteria in patients’ body.

However, technology deployment can be challenging with security being the foremost concern. Despite this fact, institutions such as Boston’s Children’s Hospital and Tallaghat hospital in Dublin are using high-tech solutions such as Apple research kit and telepresence robot to improve outcomes, while ensuring security. What can we learn from their approach? Let’s take a look.

Five steps to successful deployment

Introducing technological change in an organization is a complex process that requires the support of domain expertise and best practices. Here are 5 ways to ensure robust deployment of next-gen technology solutions to enhance operational efficiency.

  • Establish a strategy: Leading companies up their technology adoption game by formulating a well -defined and holistic strategy. The strategy should aim to deploy a comprehensive solution with the end goal in the mind. It should also help you easily integrate new technologies in your organization, while enhancing efficiency of the employees as well as improving customer satisfaction.
  • Design a technology plan: Reviewing your current technological stack is imperative before deploying a cloud solution or enabling a virtual environment. The needs and requirement of various departments and executives should be considered while enabling a new technological ecosystem.
  • Testing and going live: All functionalities of the new environment should be tested against your daily requirements and business processes before going live. Proper workflow and defect identifying system is essential for successful go live objective.
  • Improve infrastructure security- Adding mobile apps or cloud solutions can put the your organization’s sensitive data at risk. It is critical to carry out a risk assessment exercise at the beginning and implement a robust infrastructure security solution in adherence with HIPAA. The enhanced security will ensure that your remote staff has secure access to data and email systems for increased productivity.
  • Provide user support- Your technology-enabled environment will require the support of experts in order to deliver intended outcomes. You can enhance the productivity of your technology-enabled environment through proper training of your staff and continued support for your managed devices through an experienced partner

Capitalizing on new opportunities with a robust approach

The healthcare industry operates in a complex environment. It is therefore important to ensure that technology initiatives are not blanket initiatives that take over everything in the organization. Rather they should be designed to extend current functionalities by providing easy and secure access to information, thereby helping stakeholders deliver superior outcomes. The other question that needs to be addressed is how to manage data and successfully enable future technology upgrades. A planned approach to technology enablement that takes into account factors such as the use of data, and long term business and security goals can add significant value to your organization and create competitive advantage.