Digital Transformation is inevitable in the healthcare industry. To achieve a robust competitive advantage, healthcare organizations must undergo an organizational change process with digital technologies. By embracing digitalization, we can revolutionize healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes.
The key question is, “How can we transition from a traditional healthcare system to a digital healthcare ecosystem?”
Transformation in a conventional industry is becoming a norm to stay competitive. Yet, it is taken too lightly by all stakeholders involved. Many organizational management studies show the importance of rigorous planning. Let’s explore how digital values can be created, design a digital ecosystem, and implement these changes. This journey will require the expertise of Digitalization Consultants.
Table of Contents
Economy Transformation
Economy Transformation in healthcare involves transitioning from near-term to long-term goals. We can focus on operational efficiency through asset utilization, monetize data for new products and services, establish outcome-based economies through platform marketplaces, and strive for an autonomous, pull economy through end-to-end automation. Additionally, we can improve healthcare offerings by emphasizing quality, customer integration, and building a collaborative ecosystem.
Near-term to Long-term Transformation:
- Enhancing Operational Efficiency: Maximizing asset utilization.
- Innovating New Products & Services: Monetizing data.
- Embracing the Outcome Economy: Creating a platform marketplace.
- Enabling Autonomous, Demand-driven Economy: Implementing end-to-end automation.
Industry 4.0 has a significant impact on healthcare. By reducing latencies, we can create business value and enhance agility. The goal of digitization is to increase collaboration between the cyber and physical worlds, ultimately improving healthcare productivity.
There is one more thing I would like to mention regarding the implementation of automation. Over the past few decades, our economy has come to value automation less and less, even though it has become a norm. Although we still have a long way to go, we should not forget the main objective of automation, which is to free us from routine work so that we can focus on creative work.
In today’s world, it’s vital to set goals that align with the shift to smart services. For businesses to stay competitive, employee development is essential to succeed in this transition. Buschmeyer’s (2016) research on German manufacturing reveals that goal setting and personnel development have a more significant impact on transformation success than communication. Therefore, it’s crucial for companies to prioritize goal setting and personal development to achieve their desired outcomes.
Create Healthcare Value with Smart Services
Creating value in healthcare is possible through smart services. By leveraging service platforms, we can combine digital and physical services to create a network-like business model. Implementing a pay-per-use model can lead to a win-win situation for both healthcare providers and patients. However, funding the overhead costs may require bank loans due to the co-creation of value with future customers.
Digital Business Consulting
Digital Business Consulting plays a crucial role in transforming healthcare. It involves coordinating autonomous actors to co-create value streams, supply chains, and ecosystems in healthcare. Designing a digital platform business requires customer focus, adaptability within the platform, knowledge forecasting, data aggregation, leveraging network effects, and scaling with zero-cost. Leveraging IoT-specific data can help us find free data for healthcare and translate it into value.
Analyzing the healthcare ecosystem requires stakeholder models, value flow models, layer models, and value stream models. These models help us understand the intricacies of healthcare platform strategies and make informed decisions.
Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) face challenges in implementing digital strategies due to resistance from business unit leaders. Achieving ambidexterity is crucial, as it requires a balance between exploration and exploitation. We need to create something new while optimizing core competencies to capture more productivity and profit. Overcoming barriers such as irreversible transformation, future-proof design, and dealing with uncertainty is vital. Establishing a digital hub, innovation platform, and lab can facilitate this process.
In conclusion
Healthcare is being transformed into a digitalized ecosystem and it requires careful consideration and planning. However, the benefits are well worth the effort. In this journey, we have learned how to create digital values, understand the background of economic transformation, and recognize that Industry 4.0 is already happening. We have explored the shift from a product-centric to a service-centric healthcare approach and discussed how to design a healthcare ecosystem. Lastly, we have examined the steps needed to transform healthcare organizations to be ready for digitalization. Let’s embrace the digital revolution and improve healthcare outcomes for all.
Reading materials
Bouarar, A. C., Mouloudj, K., & Martínez Asanza, D. (2023). Integrating Digital Health Strategies for Effective Administration. In Https://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018/978-1-6684-8337-4. IGI Global. https://www.igi-global.com/gateway/book/313178
Buschmeyer, A., Schuh, G., & Wentzel, D. (2016). Organizational Transformation Towards Product-service Systems – Empirical Evidence in Managing the Behavioral Transformation Process. Procedia CIRP, 47, 264–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PROCIR.2016.03.224