The healthcare sector must become more proficient in deploying automation and enablement technologies as the industry faces an increasingly demanding user base and moves toward a value-based care strategy, according to analyst firm EY’s latest health report.

WHY IT MATTERS
The report highlights the connections healthcare players need to move the industry forward in the face of digitization, and explores how redefining value in healthcare is leading to new ways of delivering care.

For consumers and physicians, healthcare systems lag in introducing digital health technologies, and the report notes the major challenge for health systems around the world is how to unlock the power of digital health technologies as an enabler of real system change.

In addition to a "digital backbone" that will eventually transform the patient’s end-to-end consumer experience, digital tools will also start to move the location of more care into the user’s home.

The report also pointed out upcoming 5G network capabilities will help power the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and connectivity requirements needed to provide at-home care services and more sophisticated mobile and telehealth technologies.

THE LARGER TREND
Health systems of the future will also need to be smarter – that means the deployment of robust data analytics platforms, machine learning tools and artificial intelligence algorithms that can translate reams of health data into actionable intelligence.

The report noted the intersection of social, mobile, analytics, cloud and sensor technologies, or SMACS, would provide the healthcare industry with innovative ways in which to understand and interact with patients, families and caregivers, with remote monitoring tools and AI expected to be central to healthcare within the next decade.

Three key elements are considered crucial to this transition: a new operating model built around digitally enabled products and services, performance-based business processes streamlined by automation, and enabling consumer trust and reducing risk through robust cybersecurity practices.

ON THE RECORD
"Health organizations need to become more agile and look to build, buy or partner on solutions that bring the organization up to speed," David Roberts, EY global health sector leader, said in a statement. "Healthcare organizations and health systems contemplating change will need to weigh three conditions that are necessary to achieve this – creating an overarching strategy of digital transformation, optimizing performance through agile business transformation and pursuing deep-seated cultural change."