Digital Transformation in Healthcare: Do’s and Don’ts for CIOs

Done right, digital transformation in healthcare drives productivity, satisfaction, quality of care, and reimbursement. But it can be easy to get wrong.

Digital transformation—the shift to technology and cloud-based service models— promises to increase clinic efficiencies, improve patient care, and support value-based reimbursement models. But when digital transformation efforts go awry, they can leave organizations in a muddle of half-completed initiatives, duplication of efforts, and security vulnerabilities, leading to frustration, unexpected costs, and increased risk.

The stakes are high to get this right. With changes in reimbursement models, compliance regulations, and patient expectations, digital transformation is no longer an option—it’s a  requirement.

To get it right, there are some clear do’s and don’ts for healthcare CIOs. MTS CEO Mona Abutaleb’s article in MedCityNews spells these out.

A few highlights:

• Don’t: Expect that moving from paper to digital is the goal. If all you do is replicate inefficient paper-based systems, you’ll simply frustrate staff, providers, and patients. Not surprisingly, the costs will outweigh the benefits.
• Do: Look for cultural change opportunities. Digital transformation is actually a cultural transformation. That transformation sometimes means walking away from long-standing processes in favor of new practices that are still being defined.
• Don’t: Underestimate the value of the cloud. While on-premise servers have been a reasonable approach for many healthcare organizations’ IT foundations, that time has mostly passed. Hardware expenses, software patching, IT resources, and security challenges are just the tip of on-prem challenges.
• Do: Think security first. Security is the basis for the trust between provider and patient, so it’s a critical foundation for any technology discussion. Make sure your cloud provider understands the unique importance and requirements for healthcare hosting.
• Don’t: Put technology and patient needs in separate silos. Digital transformation can have significant impacts on how you deliver—and are reimbursed for—better patient outcomes.
• Do: Connect technology to quality of care. Digital transformation supports the business processes to collect, store, analyze, and produce the data you need to receive payments based on the quality, rather than the quantity, of care delivered to your patients.

There’s lots more in the article—don’t miss it!