Enhancing the digital experience in healthcare
By Rudrani Ghosh
What are the chief ingredients that construct a positive digital consultation?
As they say, with New Year comes new beginnings and this is also applicable to the field of digitalization of healthcare. The global pandemic accelerated the digital agenda and changed the entire panorama of the healthcare industry. Under the umbrella term of digital health, ‘disruptive innovations and digital communication’ have become an inextricable part of providing the best healthcare services. Thus, keeping up with digital transformation and emerging technologies seems overwhelming, but let's see where digitalization has created an impact and where it needs improvement.
Bringing the hospital to the customer
The patients, in the post-COVID world, are no longer waiting on the sidelines; instead, they have become active participants of their cure; taking matters into their own hands. And as patients aren't waiting, hospitals can't wait either. They have responded in various ways by providing medical kits to their patients and arranging remote consultation from the comforts of the patients' homes.
According to Dr. Subhrojyoti Bhowmick, Clinical Research and Academic Director, Peerless Hospital and Consultant for Digital Health Programmes at Maulana Azad Abdul Kalam University of Technology, "There is a positive response to the digital switchover of the hospital sector. The most important thing that changed the course of the healthcare industry is the practice of telemedicine services – which has now become a routine affair, thus transforming the patient-provider experience." Apart from telemedicine and remote consultation, "we are also witnessing a lot of positive activities concerning sharing of patients' medical reports via digital media – a transformation that will strengthen the way healthcare is delivered in rural India" he adds.
According to the IAMAI-Kantar ICUBE 2020 report, the adoption in internet by rural India has been growing at an increasing rate in the past few years; with more than a third of the rural population already active. This has snowballed due to the pandemic and has thus also increased the remote consultation cases and use of digital media to share medical reports. This not only provides an easier and quicker access to the rural population to regular consultation but also reduces the need to build new infrastructure to some extent and increases the number of cases that a doctor can do in a day.
Digitalization is not a COVID concept
Tom Ferguson postulated the consumerist movement in healthcare by introducing the term 'e-patient' way back in 2007. Digitalization is not a COVID concept, it is a continuous, complex and multidimensional process that is linked to social, economic and technological factors that go beyond the hospital walls. The industries which were able to reshape and redesign omnichannel transformations are the ones who pulled through, advanced and flourished.
In the words of Mr. Bharat Gera, Digital Transformation Advisor, KIMS Hospital "the activation of going digital happened before the deadly virus hit the country. The providers who were already doing digital before Covid are the ones who were able to realize the push much better." In a study carried out by ehCOS and NTTDATA NEXT, it was found that more than 5 billion dollars is being invested in emerging companies in the field of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare. In another survey conducted by Silicon Valley Bank in 2016, it was found that more than 120 health-tech executives stated that AI, Big Data and Internet of Things will have a significant impact in the healthcare sector. The digital solutions have facilitated rapid responses and are laying a foundation for long term changes in care delivery.
In this race of accelerating the digital transformation, "there are outperformers and lagers," he continues by providing an example – "top 10% of the hospitals do 80% of the consults on BestDoc, a leading digital health start-up." Digitalization in healthcare "will continue even after the wave is over. When the wave slows down, the number will also fall down but still there will be a significant number," he adds.
Mind the gaps
With the advancement of technology and competition in the healthcare ecosystem, the importance of customer experience comes to the forefront. The behavior of the modern healthcare consumer has had a paradigm shift over time. Along with the closed-loop real-time approach, the patients now demand better experience, convenience, and a sense of accountability.
According to Mr. Gera, "people are willing to use digital services provided that their experience is prioritized and the right services are provided." In a recent consumer survey done be American Well it was seen that about 61% of those willing to embrace teleconsultation would do it for the convenience and the faster delivery/response and 54% to save money.
He gave an instance of his personal experience where he had to wait in the virtual waiting room – which not only caused trouble to the patient but also hampered the patient satisfaction level.
The patients' journey is not just restricted to the hospital. It extends beyond that – there is a 'before' and 'after' attached to the overall patient journey. Only with the proper stitching of all that together by understanding the context where the digital tools can be leveraged – is what will give the consumer a better patient and caregiver experience. The rightful approach to ensure stickiness in the digital patient journey is by "designing a seamless way to enhance patient satisfaction." says Mr. Gera.
"In healthcare, all the assistance needs to be integrated be it Radiology Information System, Payment and Billing, Laboratory Information System, Outpatient, Discharge and via this Longitudinal Patient Record Maintenance, going digital completely can be achieved." Mr. Bharat adds, "Although it involves a lot of backend works, the government has already started taking initiative in this medium." The NDHM’s key aims includes the digitization of the health data in India by using telemedicine and providing a seamless and hassle-free access to the medical records which will enable informed decision making and increase the accountability of healthcare providers
From 'doing digital' to 'being digital'
According to Dr. Bhowmick, the right way to convert the healthcare ecosystem from 'doing digital' to 'being digital' is through the "commitment by the leadership (be it at a political level or an organizational level) and management of implementation."
He further elaborates by saying, "Digital journey in healthcare is here to stay. It is not that when the pandemic dies out, people are not going to access healthcare via virtual mode." In that vein, he identified some key areas which need to be prioritized to enhance the digital experience:
Infrastructure development: there is a need for the development of infrastructure in order to enhance the patient digital experience concerning internet connectivity in rural and semi-urban areas.
Technically trained telemedicine personnel: There is a need for technically trained telemedicine people in healthcare and in this context many universities such as the Maulana Azad Abdul Kalam University of Technology have started developing courses directed to telemedicine and digital health.
Best practices across the globe have to be implemented: For instance – the Data Protection Bill. India is on the verge of developing its data protection bill which is a very essential requirement as far as digital healthcare delivery is concerned.
Embracing Digital
The plan of adoption of digital transformation is essential in improving healthcare deliveries and strengthening customer relationships. While the journey is long, creating measurable and scalable KPIs to understand the success of digital initiatives is important. A good example where a digital initiative resulted in a success was in 2018, when Apollo hospital partnered up with the Israeli company GlucoMe to help their diabetes patients monitor themselves. By using a device that can measure blood sugar levels and transfer the data directly to a mobile phone, doctors are able to monitor about ten times more patients than is possible with face-to-face consultations.
"There has to be certain KPIs like – the digital quotient of the people in the organization, the number of endpoints digitalized successfully to deliver value in terms of efficiency, how much of the patient journey has been digitalized, NPS score," says Mr. Gera.
Dr. Bhowmick further adds, "By looking at the financial aspect required to develop the infrastructure of digital transformation in the hospital to what has been utilized, deviation to maintain patient data or confidential information in the digital platform – will serve as a good KPIs to understand the success of the transformation.”
Thus, to effectively enhance the digital experience of healthcare we need to primarily look at the capabilities of the processes, the human capital alteration, and the infrastructure. Organisations that will be able to create a delightful customer experience, and earn their trust will seize the opportunity and win in the future.