As health systems invest in specific programs such as remote monitoring or telehealth, other digital health programs are struggling to appear from pilot deployment and also facing competing priorities for arbitrary budgets. Electronic health record (EHR) systems continue to ingest a massive amount of organizational IT budgets in health systems. CIOs of health systems in this New Year will face a trade-off between traditional EHR systems and emerging digital health technologies; superior experience design and advanced analytical capabilities and ease of integration and deployment. Some of the trends you need to look out for in the New Year:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all set to change the Healthcare sector in 2019:
AI is that mature technology which can mine the massive amount of diverse data sources, as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms continue to get more beautiful. Healthcare enterprises now have a selection of numerous technological and analytical solutions in the marketplace, from big tech firms all the way to startups. According to various surveys done by numerous organizations, 75 percent of healthcare enterprises are planning to execute an AI strategy. However, the challenge for health systems and their technology providers is not just to create meaningful insights but incorporate them seamlessly into clinical workflows and care pathways.
Big technology organizations are still trying to figure out their game for healthcare markets:
Big tech conglomerates although having entered the healthcare sector are getting involved in a battle over who will be owning the healthcare consumer of the future. Big technology companies have made significant progress in developing capabilities to analyze and aggregate more substantial and diverse sources of data. Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon have raised the stakes in 2018 by hiring high-profile clinician executives to come up with the secret sauce for success in the new digital health landscape. Among big tech firms, Apple has been making a remarkable achievement in transforming the Apple watch into an ECG app indicating that they are further ahead in digital health than most of the big tech firm.
Digital health startups will face a constant struggle for stability and progress:
Today, digital health startups are caught in a complicated situation where they are struggling to gain friction with end clients on the one hand and safeguard themselves from being crushed by big tech competitors on the other. For the first time, we have witnessed public failures of promising startups in 2018. However, the good news for startups is that healthcare enterprises are taking an interest and have set up innovation capital that offers a platform for innovators to pilot their solutions and are taking equity stakes in some cases.
Blockchain will gain prominence as a solution provider in the healthcare arena:
Despite blockchain technology being the most anticipated one, there are fewer use cases in deployment in the healthcare arena. Half the physician community does not have complete knowledge about the technology, and an essential aspect of a large number of participants to accomplish critical mass in a blockchain program is proper literacy of the technology.
