Across healthcare we are seeing increasing numbers of staff vacancies in both clinical and professional services against unprecedent demand for healthcare provision.
Professional services looking to manage the implementation and adoption of digital technologies, are faced with clinical teams who are burnt-out and feeling underappreciated.
In the supplier market we seem to have two extremes. Some suppliers cannot recruit fast enough to meet demand from their clients, others are already cutting staff numbers as the finance squeeze starts to take effect. If there was a recipe for failure, this could be it!
The recent pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies across all industries globally, and healthcare is no exception. If we look at both public and privately funded providers, we see vast sums of money invested in digital transformation programmes.
Business and society can see the potential for a more digitally enabled world, yet 70 per cent of digital transformation projects fail and of the remaining projects, 20 per cent do not fully meet their business objectives.
It is not possible to escape the fact that there is a lot of complexity to deal with before benefits can be realised. Organisations that do succeed, embrace transformation into their values, their culture and the strategy that drives their value proposition.
Below I discuss the six stages of digital transformation that every organisation should consider.
1. Strategy
The development of a digital strategy should be the starting point for any organisation looking at change.
Determining the value digital tech will bring the business is the logical starting point, yet it is also important to acknowledge that digital transformation must be seen as a business wide initiative that embraces cross functional working internally and externally with suppliers.
Successful digital transformation involves not just the transformation of processes, but the transformation of management styles and organisational culture.
Those organisations with centralised management structures sometimes struggle with this. Their more unitarist management models tend to assume situations can be controlled, and in uncertain times there is a tendency for companies to tighten the reigns.
The current global financial situation is enough to make any board a little more cautious and perhaps consider putting that digital project on the backburner. However, is this the right thing to do?
Becky Warnes
Studies have shown that during the Great Recession of 2008 and before that in 2000, companies who recovered the quickest were those who did not carry-out a mass cull of staff.
Instead these companies reviewed and streamlined internal processes, adopting automation where possible. Furthermore, those with in-house development teams fared better still.
Digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. Those organisations who are late adopters or who are not fully committed will find themselves left behind and potentially out of touch with their customer’s needs.
2. People
Recruiting the right people is imperative. I am not just talking about developers or tech gurus, but at executive and C-Suite level too.
Those who are responsible for developing and implementing a digitally focused strategy must have an understanding not just of the financial value, but of the technology and potential impact on stakeholders.
These are the people that will drive change throughout the business, they will help integrate the organisation’s digital ambitions into the culture, workflows, and outputs.
Staff development is a topic that needs to be considered. It is widely accepted that roles that staff are training for today, are not likely to be around in 20 years.
A change in skillset is not going to happen overnight, it will be a gradual process and once again those who are fully committed to the digital transformation journey, we be best placed to anticipate and adapt.
3. Agility
Agile is an overused word in healthcare and industry.
I am not referring to Agile (Scrum) project management methodology, with Scrum Masters and daily stand-ups. I am referring to the need for business models to change in a way that supports the utilisation of cross functional skills and takes a whole system approach to working.
It comes back to strategy, to culture and the acceptance that things won’t always go to plan.
This does not come naturally to clinicians or those working in and around healthcare. It presents a need for suppliers to understand this and walk their customers through the process at their pace.
4. Data Management
A lot of other articles on the six-stage process put technology above data management. In my experience healthcare data feeds and information governance need to be considered before or at least at the same time as the tech.
Data management involves understanding the current data feeds, systems and processes that bring it all together. This not only helps uncover needs, but also speeds up the product implementation phase.
Yet, if those processes are already optimised, then what improvements are you expecting to see? Digital for digital sake, is a waste of everyone’s time and resource.
5. Technology
Digital transformation in any industry starts with an identified problem. Tech should always be part of the solution, not the reason for change and not the single enabler of change.
Ultimately if a solution does not meet the needs of the end user, it has failed. Almost all start-ups fail because there is no market need. In healthcare there are solutions that have been developed based on perceived needs or the needs of one hospital or even clinician.
My advice to any supplier or SRO looking to implement a digital change project is to go to the Gemba, go to where the work is done and seek to understand the need.
6. Implementation and Adoption
Everything comes back to people and human need to feel safe and secure. Having digital technologies forced upon someone does not make them want to understand it’s purpose or use it.
I have seen an EHR deployed across an entire health system and nine months later only 27 per cent of clinicians were using it. It is not uncommon for patient record apps to be developed and deployed to meet the needs of clinicians, rather than the patient they aim to serve.
The issue much of the time is that the project plans have been designed to meet budgetary timelines, rather than solve a problem that end users have. The supplier of the solution is decided before discovery phase, and user needs are shoehorned into the product specification.
Healthcare is not simple; to create a truly innovative solution suppliers must look to spend time ‘in the shoes’ of those clinicians or patients who would be using it. There is no short-cut, there is no quick win.
Technology is evolving and the need for greater levels of co-design and collaboration are apparent.
Becky is an awarding business consultant who is passionate about digital health technologies. She has experience working with the National Health Service and Industry in the UK on both a local and national level.
