An Apple Watch has already saved several lives thanks to its monitoring features and the ability to call 911. That’s just one example of how digitalization becomes a true guardian angel. Our devices basically serve as an efficient tool to request healthcare services.

 

Innovative technologies have become an integral part of the HC industry. It seems like its road has just begun, and the digital transformation of the healthcare market will continue to grow, expanding at a CAGR of over 14% through 2031. And studies show that more than 90% of surveyed healthcare professionals expect digital transformation to enhance their organizations' performance and relationship with patients.

 

Yet, how are digitals transforming medicine? What do they change, streamline or endanger? Find all the answers in this article, listing the advantages of digital health transformation and overview its examples, challenges, and latest trends.

Need help with software development? Contact us now
Get a quote
Contents

Benefits of Digital Transformation in Healthcare

What is digital transformation in healthcare? It’s adapting information, communication, computing and connectivity technologies to enhance the health system’s agility. The key promise of healthcare digital transformation is to bring sustainable value to various stakeholders in its ecosystem, including institutions, patients, and healthcare professionals.

By embracing technologies and innovative methods, the industry can reap many benefits of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It goes beyond precision medicine delivery and visual disease detection. Digital transformation in the healthcare industry also plays a vital role in improving the operational decision-making of HC-providing institutions.

Let’s look at the advantages of combining digital transformation and healthcare in detail:

Benefits of Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Advanced communication

Digitalization of the health system erases the barriers in doctor-doctor and doctor-patient relations, making them more transparent and straightforward. For instance, medical specialists from different fields can efficiently collaborate to provide the most accurate treatment plan. And patients can request healthcare services using their devices for calling, chatting, sending photos, logging into platforms and receiving emails.

Optimized workflow

Tons of paperwork, lost medical certificates, and inaccessible data? Digitization in healthcare makes these pains a long-forgotten past. Digital transformation in healthcare leads to positive improvements in the health information system.

Implementing CRM in the healthcare industry brings many compelling opportunities, including storing patient data, invoices, health insurance information, etc. Instead of working on numerous documents, physicians can dedicate more time to patients. The latter can save time on traveling to the clinic or getting doctor’s updates.

Reduced costs

One of the major benefits of digital innovations in healthcare is their cost-effectiveness. Automated processes, data-driven approaches, remote services, online platforms, information storage and management systems require fewer resources than maintaining traditional healthcare. Therefore, integrating digital in healthcare notably cuts expenses for patients and healthcare institutions.

Personalized approach

Thanks to advanced technologies, healthcare professionals can provide more accurate diagnoses and personalized medical treatment for their patients. Digital solutions help meet patients’ unique care needs, either online or in person, instead of sitting hours in waiting rooms. The power of artificial intelligence improves analytical and modeling processes, which results in precise individual treatment.

Main Areas of Digital Transformation in Healthcare

We can outline two major goals of the digital healthcare industry — to improve patient-facing services and optimize internal workflow processes. Using innovative IT solutions and ML models, HC organizations level up healthcare quality and decrease its cost. To get a better understanding of how it works, find a few examples of digital health transformation below.

Process automation

Probably, the most apparent yet powerful use case of digitization in the healthcare market. Due to its precise algorithms, automation minimizes paperwork, reduces human errors, and opens new possibilities for research and analysis.

Doctors can take better care of their patients, not spending hours on medical records and cards that get automatically saved on digital platforms. Patients receive automatic reminders on scheduled appointments, test results, and medical prescriptions.

On-demand healthcare

With the rise of on-demand applications, we simply can’t get enough of them. Grocery delivery and online shopping are now basic routines of our lives. The same goes for digital health transformation — patients can access healthcare services remotely via websites or mobile applications. This way, we can book follow-up appointments, consult with doctors and order medications from drug stores.

Сonnected ambulance

Digital transformation for healthcare means much more than cutting-edge platforms and automatic notifications — it’s about responsiveness and fast communication. Paramedics shoulder the responsibility of being the first ones to diagnose emergency patients and inform the hospital about their condition.

Сonnected ambulance

Hence, digital health technology in the form of a connected ambulance gathers all crucial patient data from wearables during transportation and sends it to the hospital. With that information, doctors will prepare for patients’ arrival and provide all required procedures quickly and efficiently, without losing any minutes.

Patient portals

A convenient method of providing patients with information about their medical records. Such secure online platforms are excellent tools for keeping track of healthcare visits, laboratory results, prescriptions, scheduling appointments, chatting with physicians, etc. People accessing their medical records in just a couple of clicks is another notable impact of digital transformation on healthcare.

Telemedicine/Virtual visits

Sometimes, in-person appointments are impossible due to distance, medical conditions, or other serious obstacles. Yet, digitals are transforming medicine to provide accessible and effective patient care in ways that were previously impossible. Thanks to telemedicine, you can visit a doctor at a suitable time and place.

Patients can describe their symptoms, get the diagnosis, and discover treatment options through video calls, messengers, or email. This way, doctors can monitor and consult patients much more quickly and efficiently, saving time for both sides. Nevertheless, in some cases, they may ask patients to schedule an offline appointment for proper medical examination and treatment.

Wearable technology devices

At the beginning of this article, we’ve mentioned the superpower of smartwatches saving human lives. Digital transformation of medicine evolves with each upgraded model and OS of wearable medical devices. They streamline processes for healthcare providers by providing accurate results and engaging patients in their own well-being.

People tend to be more engaged in their wellness: tracking their sports efforts, heart rate, blood pressure, daily step count, etc. Hence, they can monitor health metrics and prevent serious medical issues. Moreover, health wearables provide notification features that send reminders to stay hydrated, take pills or do some activities.

Key Challenges in Digital Health Transformation

Apart from enormous potential, the digital transformation of healthcare has some challenges we must recognize. To stay competitive among other institutions, HC organizations must be ready for the process complexity and possible problems. We present you some examples of the most significant challenges for enterprises in healthcare digital transformation:

Initial costs

Even though the role of digital transformation in healthcare is to cut expenses, innovative IT solutions require vast investments. By prioritizing return on investment over value, many organizations are not hurrying to digitize their workflow. Yet, they are missing out on the profits and revenue they could have made by now.

Changes acceptance

Digital transformation in healthcare is a revolutionary step in the perception of millions. Some people aren’t ready to accept it with open arms right away: they simply can’t break their habits that easily. Nevertheless, a properly managed process of digitalization, training and adaptation for healthcare providers and patients will help implement digital solutions successfully.

Privacy concerns

Such valuable and sensitive information, like personal health data, attracts cybercriminals. Unfortunate incidents of patient data leakage may tarnish the organization’s reputation, causing public mistrust and slander. Preventing patient data theft must be a top priority of healthcare enterprises.

Implementing Digital Technologies for the Healthcare Sector: Popular Tech Solutions

By introducing new and creating favorable environments for efficient performance, technologies are changing the healthcare industry. And while discussing the future of HC, we must analyze what’s already been done in terms of the industry’s transformation.

What technologies became widely used trends that drive digital transformation in healthcare? Here are some of them:

Digital Technologies for the Healthcare Sector:

Virtual reality

This technology provides an innovative treatment for patients using simulations of 3D environments. Virtual reality ensures data visualization, including multi-modality image fusion, pre-operative planning, and other analytical tools for advanced diagnosis. There are many use cases of VR in healthcare, and the best practices include surgery, pain management, physical and mental health treatment.

For instance, virtual exploration of a patient’s body as training or pre-surgical planning enhances surgical efficiency and surgeon practical skills. To minimize chronic or contraction pains, VR applications transfer patients to a peaceful environment to ease their minds. The same goes for virtual physical and mental therapy, where an AI-based instructor monitors patients’ conditions and ensures effective recovery from injuries, traumas, phobias, and disorders.

3D printing

With the help of this technology, healthcare professionals can design custom medical tools for specific cases, such as patients’ anatomical peculiarities. Plus, developing 3D printing objects takes less time than manufacturing tailor-made prosthetics. Such a swift and personalized approach allows you to save many resources, especially money.

The result of our past project ― a unique end-to-end web application for printing customized 3D models for surgery supply. The solution helps accurately execute procedures, pre-plan surgical operations in 3D, and precisely reconstruct organs, reducing the time and costs of operations.

Internet of things

Today, IoT in the healthcare industry opens many new opportunities to collect vital information about health conditions. Therefore, physicians can provide more accurate treatments for expected outcomes. Medical devices provide remote monitoring of different metrics, gather health data and forward it for further analysis. In hospital environments, the internet of things devices can track medical staff and equipment and check inventory conditions.

Big data

When discussing implementing digital technologies for the healthcare sector, we must mention the power of big data. Actually, its application in the HC industry results in operational efficiency, advanced patient services and better access to critical information. Big data helps manage massive volumes of information, easing healthcare institutions’ workload. And thanks to big data analytics, professionals can prevent epidemics, discover cures and bring life-saving outcomes.

Consider Inoxoft Your Trusted Partner

Inoxoft is a custom healthcare software development company that creates client-oriented flexible and smart medical care at a high-quality level. We develop solutions for real-time consultancy and remote tracking healthcare state of patients. During our eight years of experience, we’ve worked with numerous hospitals and healthcare startups whom we offered the following services:

In one of our case studies, we described the client’s need to find an easy way of diagnosing cardiovascular diseases, based on voice recordings. Inoxoft’s team delivered an AI-empowered web and mobile application that allows doctors to diagnose, communicate with patients and accurately analyze their voice records, preserved in a cloud database and processed under HIPAA guidelines.

If you are interested in cooperating with us, don’t hesitate to contact us and start implementing your ideas into reality!

Frequently Asked Questions

How are digitals transforming medicine?

Digitals are responsible for process automation that minimizes paperwork, reduces human errors, and offers new possibilities for research and analysis. They enhance communication between healthcare professionals, patients, and staff members. Digitals also make medical care more accessible and flexible.

What are the benefits of digital health transformation?

Besides precision medicine delivery and visual disease detection, the digital transformation of healthcare improves the operational decision-making of HC institutions. Moreover, it provides:

  • Advanced communication
  • Optimized workflow
  • Reduced costs
  • Secured records
  • Personalized approach

How to choose a healthcare app development company?

Focusing on the healthcare digital transformation, how can you find a perfect team to implement innovative technologies? Here are some steps to do:

  • Choose a cooperation model. What your remote cooperation with healthcare app developers will look like, and what models they offer.
  • Form a vision for your application. To understand the essence of your idea, gather documentation, examples, and personal preferences. 
  • Review relevant cases. Pay attention to the company portfolio and client reviews.
  • Examine their technical skills. Ask for an interview with their development head and look at the work they’ve done. 

Also, check out the list of top medical application development companies in the USA.