The digital hospital of the future

Cinco use cases para o hospital digital do futuro

O futuro da prestação de cuidados de saúde pode parecer bastante diferente do hospital de hoje. A rápida evolução das tecnologias, juntamente com as mudanças geográficas e económicas, deverão mudar os hospitais em todo o mundo. Um número crescente de prestação de cuidados de saúde hospitalares estão a ser “empurrados” para cuidados de outpatient. Porém, os pacientes que estejam muito doentes ou tenham patologias complexas continuarão a precisar de internamento hospitalar.

Com a degradação das infraestruturas em alguns países e o aumento da procura por mais camas em outros, os administradores dos hospitais e os governos devem repensar como otimizar os cuidados inpatient e outpatient e integrar as tecnologias digitais nos serviços hospitalares tradicionais para verdadeiramente criar um sistema de saúde sem paredes.

Para saber como é que o futuro da prestação de cuidados de saúde irá ser, a Deloitte Center for Health Solutions realizou uma simulação de crowdsourcing com 33 especialistas de todo o mundo. Os participantes incluíram CXO’s de saúde, KOL’s, líderes de políticas públicas, tecnólogos e futuristas. O objetivo foi a criação de use cases específicos para o design de hospitais digitais por todo o mundo nos próximos 10 anos.
 

The crowdsourcing simulation developed use cases in five categories:

1. Redefined care delivery 
   Emerging features including centralized digital centers to enable decision making (think: air traffic control for hospitals), continuous clinical monitoring, targeted treatments (such as 3D printing for surgeries), and the use of smaller, portable devices will help characterize acute-care hospitals. 
2. Digital patient experience
   Digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can help enable on-demand interaction and seamless processes to improve patient experience. 
3. Enhanced talent development
   Robotic process automation (RPA) and AI can allow caregivers to spend more time providing care and less time documenting it. 
4. Operational efficiencies through technology
   Digital supply chains, automation, robotics, and next-generation interoperability can drive operations management and back-office efficiencies. 
5. Healing and well-being designs
   The well-being of patients and staff members—with an emphasis on the importance of environment and experience in healing—will likely be important in future hospital designs.

Many of these use-case concepts are already in play. And hospital executives should be planning how to integrate technology into newly-built facilities and retrofit it into older ones.

Technology will likely underlie most aspects of future hospital care. But care delivery—especially for complex patients and procedures—may still require hands-on human expertise.

Laying the foundation for the digital hospital of the future

​Building a digital hospital of the future can require investments in people, technology, processes, and premises. Most of these investments will likely be upfront. In the short term, hospital leadership may not see immediate returns on these investments. In the longer term, however—as digital technologies improve care delivery, create operational efficiencies, and enhance patient and staff experience—the return result can be in higher quality care, improved operational efficiencies, and increased patient satisfaction.

These six core elements of an enterprise digital strategy can help you get started as you begin to push your hospital into the future:

1. Create a culture for digital transformation
   It is essential that senior management understands the importance of a digital future and drives support for its implementation at all organizational levels.
2. Consider technology that communicates
   Digital implementation is complex. Connecting disparate applications, devices, and technologies—all highly interdependent—and making certain they talk to each other can be critical to a successful digital implementation.
3. Play the long game
   Since digital technologies are ever evolving, flexibility and scalability during implementation can be critical. The planning team should confirm that project scope includes adding, modifying, or replacing technology at lower costs.
4. Focus on data
   While the requirements of data interoperability, scalability, productivity, and flexibility are important, they should be built upon a solid foundation of capturing, storing, securing, and analyzing data.
5. Prepare for Talent 2.0
   As hospitals invest in exponential technologies, they should provide employees ample opportunities to develop corresponding digital strategies.
6. Maintain cybersecurity
   With the proliferation of digital technologies, cyber breaches can be a major threat to hospitals of the future. Executives should understand that cybersecurity is the other half of digital implementation and allocate resources appropriately.