The following is a guest article by Lynne Bell, Vice President, Vertical Markets at Spectrum Enterprise
Digital transformation in the healthcare industry has been propelled by technology advancements, evolving regulations, and changing patient expectations. When the pandemic brought about rapid change, leading healthcare organizations needed to quickly embrace and adopt digital health strategies and modern technologies to meet shifting employee and patient needs. As the industry moves beyond the pandemic to reconsider technology needs and priorities going forward, three important trends are emerging that are influencing digital health transformation: the rise of healthcare consumerism, addressing the shortcomings of the telehealth experience, and meeting future digital infrastructure and transformation needs, such as data traffic, bandwidth, and cybersecurity protections.
Rising Healthcare Consumerism
More than ever before, patients expect digital and technology integration within their care experience. In fact, according to a recent research study, Enterprise Digital Health Transformation Study, 84% of healthcare organizations say their patients are demanding a more personalized, holistic digital experience. Patients want easy and secure access to healthcare services from anywhere, at any time. To help address these growing consumer preferences, organizations are embracing the ‘digital front door’ – which refers to the virtual approach that patients use to interact with a healthcare provider across several touchpoints, including apps and patient portals for managing appointments, messaging with a provider, and accessing testing results. Of course, a successful ‘digital front door’ strategy is only possible with a reliable, secure network and consistent, high-speed fiber internet access to enhance the digital experience for patients.
Improving the Telehealth Experience
According to the study, digital solutions play a critical role in the patient’s experience. Patients are expecting the convenience, affordability, and accessibility of telehealth. While patients and providers are often satisfied with the foundational technologies that support telehealth – security, WiFi connectivity, and streaming capabilities – the experience is still lacking in certain areas. There is an opportunity for investing in Unified Communication (UC) platforms, as performance (particularly on the patient end) is frequently cited as a low point in the telehealth transaction, with 63% of healthcare organizations citing room for improvement with the experience. Beyond that, the majority of healthcare organizations are not satisfied with their secure platforms of communication, including video to connect providers with each other and other staff, and text-based communication to connect providers to patients. To improve these experiences and ensure security across communication platforms, organizations should identify a UC solution from a technology solution provider that is HITRUST-certified (this verifies the company uses strict requirements with high-risk data) to ensure protection for the organization and the patient.
Preparing for Digital Transformation
The majority of healthcare organizations are confident in their ability to address digital transformation components like data security, regulatory compliance, network management, mobility, and IT infrastructure, according to the Enterprise Digital Health Transformation Study. However, proper staff training and support, and both quantity and quality of talent are creating a gap and preventing organizations from feeling fully prepared. Only 19% of organizations feel highly prepared with their staff training and support while 25% feel they have enough skilled talent to enable digital transformation. Organizations can lean on technology providers for solutions that will focus on meeting the digital transformation needs of both patients and employees, anticipating technology challenges, such as large volumes of data traffic and an increase in the number of devices on the network, while also providing the technical support and training needed. Delivering the expertise and oversight for healthcare organizations to feel confident in their digital transformation journey, regardless of available talent and staff training is crucial for technology solution providers. As healthcare organizations consider investing in infrastructure, ultra-high-speed data services (connections ranging from 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps) and network expansion are part of the critical path to digital transformation that will meet growing network evolution needs and increasing demands for public cloud access, video collaboration, file sharing, and internet access. Wide-area network (WAN) optimization is critical to network expansion and digital transformation.
The Way Forward
The pandemic demonstrated the importance of having a digital infrastructure in place to anticipate changing needs with scalability and flexibility to tackle challenges that may arise tomorrow. The need to address complex issues like greater patient demands, stretched IT resources, data privacy, and cybersecurity makes it important to look at comprehensive solutions. There is a benefit to working with a technology partner that can offer a holistic approach that addresses multiple needs such as seamless and secure network access, ultra-high-speed data services, and fully managed cybersecurity protections. A trusted partner can help make a healthcare organization’s digital transformation a reality and free up internal staff to focus on other strategic priorities that support the patient experience.
About Lynne Bell
Lynne Bell is Vice President, Vertical Markets, for Spectrum Enterprise. Spectrum Enterprise, a part of Charter Communications, Inc., is a national provider of scalable, fiber technology solutions serving many of America’s largest businesses and communications service providers. She is a leader in advising healthcare organizations on their technology needs.
