Why Digital Transformation in Healthcare Matters

Roughly 4 years ago, the world was rocked by the global COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, the healthcare industry found itself struggling to keep up with surging case numbers, doing everything in its power to provide care where needed the most. While the industry is recovering from the endemic, COVID-19 exposed many of the shortcomings of healthcare. Digital transformation in healthcare is needed now more than ever to pick up the pieces left behind of the global pandemic.

Since the endemic, the healthcare industry itself has shown significant growth. Despite factors like inflation and labor shortages stunting business periodically, healthcare profits alone are estimated to grow at 7% CAGR, projecting a $236 billion growth in profits from 2022 to 2027. Within the realm of digital transformation, the digital health industry is primed for extreme growth. Revenue from this specific industry is projected to reach $171.9 billion in 2024, contributing to the strong CAGR of 8.49% from now to 2029. 

Despite this immense growth of all healthcare aspects, inadequacies have been exposed within the industry. Patient care, at-home telemedicine, and general consumer needs suffer as a result of slow, outdated technology. On the business-side of healthcare, operational efficiency has deteriorated due to legacy systems, with electronic health records (EHRs), scheduling tools, and other critical solutions slowing down as a result. 

What does digital transformation entail for healthcare, and how can Lyrid accelerate this arduous process?

What is Digital Transformation in Healthcare?

At its core, digital transformation involves integrating tech wherever necessary in all aspects of a business, as a means of increasing operational efficiency. In the realm of healthcare, digital transformation involves integrating tech within the entire healthcare process, including patient care, administration, and even at-home care.

Digital integration within healthcare revolves around key tech staples in the industry. Revolutionizing things like EHRs, telemedicine and communications, and even wearable healthcare devices have been shown to improve patient care workflows, both in and out of medical care facilities. Concepts and tech like data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT) have been key to progressing digital transformation efforts and are paramount to streamlining healthcare processes.

At the core of organizations leading digital transformation is improving patient-care. In a report from McKinsey, it was observed that the virtual health geared towards enhancing the patient experience was the highest investment priority for many health care executives. While virtual health had the highest investment, in the same report it was shown that AI and machine learning contained the highest potential for positive impact within an organization.

Successful digital transformation results in two-way benefits: advancements in internal operations and streamlining patient-facing actions. The benefits of digital transformation in healthcare include:

• Increased cost-savings and cost-efficiency
• More convenient and accessible patient-care
• Improved workflows and productivity
• Wider access to health systems through telemedicine
• Stronger data security 

In order to truly gain the benefits of digital transformation, healthcare organizations must develop a strategy that involves every single employee, from decision makers to front desk workers. From company wide training to physical and digital tech integration, digital transformation initiatives are varied and can take time, but the results are all worth it.

Healthcare Digital Transformation Trends

The Use of Big Data and Data Analytics

Roughly 30% of the world’s data is generated by the healthcare sector. Data in the healthcare space is nothing new, but the levels of generation we’re witnessing today prompt the need for stronger analytics capabilities. 

From EHRs to wearable devices, data within the healthcare industry is vast and moves at high velocity. Based on sheer volume alone, health-related data is extremely hard to process, resulting in slower processing times for both patients and administrators. Because of this, organizations are placing more emphasis on analytics tools that can wade through jungles of data and find the right sets per patient.

While stronger data analytics and big data practices strengthens administrative efficiency and lowers costs, what’s extremely exciting about the presence of analytics in the healthcare space is the enhanced patient care. Enhanced diagnostics and research result in stronger preventative measures and long term predictive care. Improving data analytics and data quality also results in less errors, streamlining all healthcare processes as a whole.

Accessing Health Systems Outside of Facilities

The widespread digital transformation of healthcare comes as a result of wanting better patient experiences. While health systems and other IT in healthcare are accessible inside of medical facilities, what about at home? At a relative’s house? At work? The reality for many receiving medical care is that certain healthcare services are extremely difficult to access, let alone to request access to. 

A big part of digital transformation is emphasizing how accessible innovative health systems and tech can be for the patients that need it. Healthcare organizations have been eyeing wearable devices like fitness trackers, ECG monitors, and other smart devices to uncover patient trends that can lead to preventative measures, without patients having to even step foot into a medical facility. Patient portals, online care, and other telemedicine efforts are actively being integrated into the patient journey. A centralized digital healthcare platform would be sufficient in providing 360 care to patients. 

With 64 million adults in the US already using telemedicine solutions in 2023, a digital presence within the patient journey isn’t a new occurrence. Digital healthcare is pushing the boundaries for how accessible healthcare is, all healthcare providers have to do is encourage patients to adopt these technologies during their journey.

Using AI in Healthcare

Like most industries, artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in healthcare. From serving patient-facing operations to administrative functions, AI is pushing towards efficiency and understanding within all aspects of the space.

From aiding in research and training, to improving the decisions made regarding data, AI has various applications in healthcare. Perhaps the most exciting of them is for predictive analytics and preventative care. 

Predictive AI is being used in many facets within the industry. PWC reports that AI is already used to detect early diseases, and when coupled with wearable devices, can be used to detect heart diseases at-home. Pattern recognition technology is flourishing, identifying possible risks for patients based on environment, lifestyle, and genetics, with AI even identifying the treatment necessary to combat these risks. Healthcare professionals are even using AI to understand the patterns of their patients in order to provide feedback for a better day-to-day routine. From an administrative point of view, AI can be used to predict busy times within hospitals and other medical facilities, staffing whenever necessity arises.

Challenges of Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Implementation into Legacy Systems and Teams

One of the biggest challenges for healthcare organizations looking to transform digitally is implementing tech into existing systems and teams.

Integrating new digital technologies into existing and older systems might disrupt operations if connection is faulty. Most of the time, organizations won’t even know if new systems work cohesively with their existing systems until operation is needed. Outside of system congruence, migrating millions of health records from existing systems to new ones requires tons of support and time, something that healthcare organizations might not have.

From a team perspective, the entire employee base must be receptive and ready for new changes created by innovative tech. For things like AI and data analytics, the learning curve is significantly higher than current healthcare solutions. In order to encourage digital literacy in healthcare, organizations must integrate learning initiatives into their digital transformation strategies, ensuring that every employee is up to date with new systems. Another approach would be to adopt solutions that have a smaller learning curve, and then integrating AI and analytics once teams are more up to the challenge.

Security and Compliance

It was reported that in 2023, 133 million health records were exposed during data breaches.

As more and more tech is becoming integrated into healthcare, more and more ways to leverage potential breaches are becoming prevalent. On the topic of migrating from legacy systems, data migration can become corrupted if done improperly. To ensure that digital transformation is smooth, healthcare organizations must review their current security practices and industry compliance, even reaching out to security consulting companies if necessary. 

The fact of the matter is that healthcare companies will always be targets for security breaches. While adding more tech solutions into a company will add more entrances for potential hackers, these solutions also present a means to prevent leveraging. 

Approaching Digital Innovation in Healthcare with Lyrid

Although we aren’t necessarily a healthcare company, we understand the needs of one. When working with Aido Health, we were able to decrease their spending while increasing their speed and aiding them throughout the migration process. Here are the other ways we’re able to service healthcare companies looking to integrate digitally:

Big Data and Security

Healthcare data is second to none, with Lyrid, you’re able to competently and securely store that data through various solutions.

Lyrid Object Storage is able to store and share tons of data, using storage buckets for faster access at lower costs. This solution also streamlines the management of unstructured data, integrating with our Managed Database solution to make your life a little easier. Our approach to data is quick and convenient, letting you create production-ready databases on the fly that are flexible and scalable enough to meet any needs.

Both Lyrid Object Storage and Lyrid Managed Databases are backed by our security measures. Our daily backup solutions automatically take snapshots of your data every 24 hours, protecting yourself from data loss while ensuring that your data is easily restorable if the worst were to happen. SecureGuard keeps your data safe through our access features, allowing you to add trusted sources based on specific IP addresses.

Integration Support

Migrating and integrating services and solutions is one of the toughest parts of digital transformation. We’re here to help.

Whether you’re looking to restructure your infrastructure or bring in new solutions, our engineering team is dedicated to guiding you through the process, ensuring that your old and new solutions work without disruption. In the case of Aido Health, we were able to make their transition to microservices as smooth as possible, ensuring that migration was taken care of while they focused on their core tasks.

If you want to learn more about how to get started with Lyrid, book a call with one of our team members! We would be happy to walk you through the platform and break down how we can help!