The following is a guest article by Greg Kefer, CMO at Lifelink Systems.
If you follow enough of the healthcare industry “influencers” on social media, it’s hard to escape the annual drumbeat of predictions as the new year approaches. Optimism and opportunity is the prevailing theme, and for good reason. Who wants to go on record and say “get ready for more of the same” after the 2022 calendars go up on the wall?
After spending a chunk of time over the holidays in a state of semi-quarantine, I had time to watch some movies and the Grinch is always on the list. Dr. Suess’ story, one that begins with themes of pessimism and frustration that gradually shift to hope and optimism, got me thinking about the state of healthcare innovation.
So, when our friends at Healthcare IT Today asked for some thoughts on what lies ahead for healthcare IT, I decided to take a different, contrarian approach to the question. I could come up with a list of 20 things I would like to see happen in 2022, but if I’m being honest about it, hope and reality are vastly different things.
It’s never a good idea to head into a new year with a pessimistic attitude and believe me, I’m filled with hope. After all, I work at a technology company that’s developing breakthrough innovation so I get to see difference-making technology success taking place all over the place. I’d argue healthcare is just now beginning to embrace the kind of change that’s desperately needed, but old, bad habits die hard and over the next 12 months, the status quo will prevail more times than not.
More of the same, more pressure
It’s clear we still have a long way to go before COVID-19 is going away. New variants are consuming the Greek alphabet with sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi1, psi1, and omega still to come. Just saying the words “omega variant” sounds scary.
COVID-19 has bruised healthcare in a way that will take years to overcome. On one hand, the industry has risen to the occasion and performed miracles. But overloaded ICU wards, hundreds of thousands of deaths, PPE, social distancing, and new administrative hurdles have taken their toll on healthcare workers. So much so that more than 500,000 people have left the industry since the pandemic began.
Can an industry that is under siege leverage the situation, rise, and implement the profound change that everybody agrees is so desperately needed? Technology is the future, but is 2022 the year that we see advancements that bring the patient experience to something that’s on par with what we get in other service industries?
Prediction #1: The Labor Shortage Will Prevent Radical Change. For an industry that does not move quickly, wholesale digital transformation has never been an easy proposition. You hear about innovation teams that are chartered to identify and present promising new technologies to the organization. But what happens if nobody has time to make meetings? Assuming a decision is made, how do you drive a change management program across a company with thousands of overworked employees?
Prediction #2: Pressure to innovate quickly will keep precious funds, time, and effort focused on outdated ambitions. Healthcare doesn’t suffer from a lack of innovation investment. The combination of size, complexity, and regulations makes digital transformation hard. Many leaders will feel pressure to wrap up the innovations that are already underway — in many cases these are projects that have dragged on for years. For patients, that might manifest into a new and improved mobile app, bolstered by improved interoperability between back-office systems of record. Unfortunately, consumers are moving beyond mobile apps. Most patients report they don’t use apps from healthcare providers.
Prediction #3: Healthcare companies will mistakenly believe they can get their customers to take on more of the administrative work. Says the CIO: “Labor is tight for us, most patients use smartphones to navigate multiple other commercial transactions, we have powerful portals and apps live and ready. These advanced tools give patients the power to take on a bigger role in navigating their healthcare, just like they do with shopping, travel, and banking.” That is the wrong strategy. The concept of offloading work to patients in the spirit of giving them what they want is not new. The problem is that NOBODY wants to take on more administrative healthcare hassle, even if it comes via a shiny new mobile app.
Max the dog says cheer up as there is hope
Despite the ongoing challenges, the pandemic has created a situation that offers more opportunity for significant, lasting change than ever before.
Healthcare may struggle to innovate quickly but the clock speed of Silicon Valley continues to speed up. Just six years ago, the iPhone 6s was the bleeding edge mobile phone from Apple that everyone wanted for Christmas. How many of us still use one of those? Or, put a different way, how many of us have upgraded our iPhones three or four times since 2015? Face recognition, voice, 3D cameras, 1TB of storage, and fully integrated digital payment capabilities are now standard features. Imagine what is in store for the 2027 model of the iPhone!
The rapid advances in consumer technology are a great development for healthcare innovators because so much of the technology they need is being developed by the smartest technology companies on the planet. Friction is the number one enemy of wide-scale patient adoption of technology, yet consider the following realities:
Patients across the demographic spectrum own and rely on smartphones to execute countless commercial transactions every week. Booking a lunch reservation on the OpenTable app is not really that different than booking a doctor appointment.
Facial recognition or thumbprint scanners that come standard on mobile devices can offer security firewalls that replace usernames and passwords that patients continually forget. Mapping and rideshare apps can remove transportation logistics hurdles. And cameras and QR code scanners can provide a new form of data capture.
Importantly, language is becoming the new user interface between humans and machines. What started as basic tasks like asking Siri who the 12th U.S. President is have matured to the point where conversational chatbots are helping pharmaceutical companies like Genentech improve diversity in clinical trials. Imagine where conversational AI will be in 2027.
There are countless examples of excellent, consumer-grade technology that can be used to make healthcare easier and more efficient without forcing patients to download, set up and figure out how to use a complex healthcare app. The question for 2022 will be can the incumbents dig out from under the massive pile of COVID rubble to take action, or will it be more status quo? The reality is that we will see examples of success from a group of forward-thinking, early movers to reimagine their technology strategy. Those successes will prod others to take notice and follow on the same path. The question is not if, but when.
The Grinch underestimated the fine residents of Whoville and ultimately…”He brought everything back, all the food for the feast! And he, himself, the Grinch carved the roast beast!” When he emerges from his cave in December 2022, maybe he will see that the healthcare industry has seen the light as well.
Happy New Year!
