Healthcare CIOs’ priority for 2018: Handling change management

IT leaders around the world are busy ushering in the digital transformation era. Healthcare CIOs are no exception, yet they have a different task cut out for them.

IBEF predicts healthcare revenue in India is set to reach USD280 billion by 2020 and is one of India’s fastest growing industries. Therefore, change management is a requisite skill for a healthcare CIO today. Technology has made its way into every process of healthcare management.

Change management: A group activity

NASSCOM reports that the Healthcare Information Technology (IT) market is expected to grow 1.5 times by 2020. With software bots automating support functions, providing digital apps for end-to-end care, and tackling complex billing systems, change management is relevant now for providing cost-effective and faster care.

But change management is a tough proposition, says Sumit Singh, VP CIO, Wockhardt Hospital. He suggests that there should be a coalition of the willing, a few who can be change evangelists and propagate the message. “It is a group activity and a bottom-up approach. The benefits would be well received by someone who is at the end of the chain, who is also going to face the brunt of the change,” he says.

Healthcare is a critical service, so a tried and tested method is always relied upon. Therefore, a bottom-up approach would make it easier to unlearn certain aspects and adopt change well.

Make analytics a routine activity

As healthcare industry focuses on change management, reducing costs and scaling speed is top priority as well. Though cost-reduction is a multi-pronged approach and IT plays a significant role in times ahead. Most healthcare leaders don’t realize, but the data in their backyard is the best way to reduce cost and increase efficiency. A marketsandmarkets report suggests that healthcare analytics market will reach USD 29.84 billion by 2022.

Singh suggests that reducing cost is essentially finding ways to do things better, smarter and easier. “Today, analytics could help save cost. With analytics it is easier to find cost allocations, difficult areas, and cost utilization,” he says. Analytics also helps find bottlenecks in an organization in an organized and on-going manner than once in a while. Analytics can show areas of concern and improvement. Therefore, analytics has to be a routine and periodic assignment

Care delivery models

M-health assures technology-enabled healthcare reaches remote and newer regions. PwC findings suggest M-health’s market size is set to rise to Rs 5,184 crore by 2020 and 68 percent of doctors in emerging markets recommend it and 59 percent of patients are already using it.

Another such technology-enabled care delivery model is telemedicine used for remote diagnosis and monitoring. The market in India is currently ahead on the global curve and PwC research suggests that telemedicine has helped bring down provider and patient costs.

Developing a digitally mature organization, and guiding employees and patients to adopt newer technologies is a task of prime importance for any healthcare CIO today. But what will be challenging in the coming decade will be getting the health organization on board to adjust to the changes and alternate ways of delivering faster and cost-effective healthcare.