Discover Your Core Competencies
Compared with other industries, healthcare has been perceived as lagging when it comes to adopting new technologies. But in recent years, it has really advanced in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Healthcare organizations are eager to test and adopt solutions so that they can see immediate improvements in how care is delivered, how clinicians are retained, and to improve overall clinical satisfaction and patient experience. There has been an uptick in healthcare organizations trying solutions that would have been considered cutting-edge and avoided in the past but are experiencing accelerated adoption today.
As they look to these new solutions, healthcare organizations must be clear about their core competencies. Just because they can do something well doesn’t mean it should be a core competency. Say, for example, an organization has an IT team that’s good at dealing with service tickets, fixing route switch environments or keeping servers up in a data center; that doesn’t mean those have to be core to that IT department.
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Organizations must identify what brings value to their operations. Do clinicians actually care how the phones work, or do they just need phones to work so they can make sure patients are moved efficiently through the system, rooms are cleaned and that critical codes actually occur when they need them?
When an IT team takes a step back and thinks about why those phones are important, that will help identify their value. Once IT understands why something is important, organizations will start to see success. So, if managing phones isn’t a core competency, for instance, it may be useful to find a managed services partner to deal with that so the organization can focus its limited resources on things that are.
When looking for a strategic partner, healthcare organizations are now demanding a level of healthcare expertise from IT staff that wasn’t necessarily a requirement in the past. In general, IT knowledge was expected to make up 90% of understanding, while healthcare-specific knowledge could be around 10%. However, healthcare organizations now expect much more industry-relevant experience, or they won’t use a partner.
Lessons from the 2024 CHIME Fall Forum for a New Year
First, healthcare organizations must embrace digital health in a holistic way. The boundaries between the bedside and the patient at home need to dissolve even further. Patient care settings will come into the focus as hospital at home and remote patient monitoring programs continue maturing.
Next, cybersecurity continues to be a priority for healthcare, as the industry has experienced many incidents in 2024 alone. Organizations remain steadfast in trying to determine how they can hedge against attacks or mitigate the damage done when they occur.
There were also important discussions on behavioral health and understanding health as comprehensive and interconnected. Whether on a pediatric or an adult level, behavioral health is a key component of overall health.
Finally, there is still interest around AI and ML, particularly around delivering ROI. Healthcare leaders are concerned about cost optimization and reducing inefficiencies. As AI and ML solutions become integrated in products or come off the shelf, there will be more pressure to use such features to reduce cost, improve patient and clinician satisfaction, and improve patient outcomes.
This article is part of HealthTech’s MonITor blog series. Check out this page for our complete coverage of CHIME24. Follow us on the social platform X at @HealthTechMag and join the conversation at #CHIME24.
