Healthcare systems around the world Health systems face many challenges, including rising costs, clinical workforce shortages, an aging population needing more care (e.g., treating chronic conditions), and increased competition from non-traditional players. At the same time, consumers expect new capabilities (e.g., digital scheduling and telehealth) and better experiences from health systems across the end-to-end care journey. In response, health systems are beginning to focus on digital and AI transformation to meet consumer demand, address workforce challenges, reduce costs, and improve the overall quality of care. Yet, despite recognizing the importance of these efforts to future sustainability, many health system executives say their organizations have not yet made enough investments.
AI, traditional machine learning, and deep learning are projected to save between $200 billion and $360 billion in healthcare costs. But are health systems investing to capture these opportunities? We recently surveyed 200 health system executives around the world about their digital investment priorities and progress. 75% of respondents said their organizations have made digital and analytical transformation a top priority but lack sufficient resources or planning in this area.
What health systems can do and learn from other industries
The goal of digital and AI transformation is to fundamentally reinvent how an organization operates and build capabilities that drive tangible business value through continuous innovation (patient acquisition and experience, clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, employee experience and retention, etc.) Bringing digital value to healthcare systems requires investment and new ways of working.
Building partnerships. Scale is important to value creation. But the definition of a large system has changed over the last few years. Today, it takes more than $13 billion in revenue to be in the top 20 systems by revenue, and many of them get there through inorganic growth. Partnerships (joint ventures and alliances) can be a promising avenue to access new capabilities, accelerate time to market, and achieve capital, scale, and operational efficiencies.
Go beyond out-of-the-box solutions. History has shown that technology such as electronic health records (EHRs) do not deliver value when deployed on top of dysfunctional processes and clinical workflows. To derive value from healthcare technology, clinical workflows and care models must be rethought (and standardized) across the organization. For example, optimizing workflows to enable better delegation with technology assistance can result in net time savings of 15-30 percent over a 12-hour shift, potentially eliminating the nursing workforce shortage of up to 300,000 inpatient nurses.
Leverage the cloud to modernize. Health systems are increasingly building cloud-based data environments with defined data products to improve data availability and quality. Health systems can also use cloud-hosted end-user-centric platforms (such as patient and clinician apps) that integrate with multiple other applications and experiences to simplify stakeholder interactions with the system.
The operation method is different. Changing how we operate requires fundamental changes in structure (flatter, empowered, cross-functional teams), people (new skill sets and fully dedicated teams), ways of working (outcome focus, agile funding, managing products instead of projects), and technology (modular architectures, cloud-based data systems, reduced reliance on monolithic EHRs). These changes have helped some health systems realize real value in under six months. Building a digital culture will set you up for successful transformation over time.
Embrace generational AI with caution. Gen AI can impact everything from continuity of care and clinical operations to contracts and corporate functions. Health system executives and patients are concerned about AI risks, especially when it comes to patient care and privacy. Managing these risks requires business-minded legal and risk management teams to sit side-by-side with AI and data science teams. Organizations can also implement well-informed risk prioritization strategies.
Investing in digital and AI offers an opportunity to address many of the challenges facing health systems. Successful health systems will invest where they can make the greatest impact while removing barriers, such as by upgrading legacy infrastructure. Health systems that successfully invest in digital and analytics capabilities will reap significant benefits and be poised to capitalize on a $200 billion to $360 billion opportunity.
