Digitalization must be the key differentiator in 2021

The worst is behind for hospital and labs. As non-emergency treatments are resumed, elective surgeries gather momentum, medical tourism pickup, and routine clinical labortary tests gain pace, additional revenue can be expected to accrue from RT PCR, antigen and antibody testing, not to forget the massive caccination drive ahead!

Globally, 83.81 million people are confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus in 2020, with 1.83 million fatalitics, and 59.32 million recovered case. The list of lingering maladies from COVID-19 to brain fog and heart damage, longer and varied than most doctors could have imagined needs to be addressed.

While The Indian goverment puts toggether funds to the tune og ₹24000 crore for vaccinating 300 million individuals by August 2021, and another ₹40000 crore for 500 million by end of 2020, the onus of making available vaccinators, support staff, transportation storage, and ensuring steady power supply is on the medical fraternity.

COVID-19 has led to a transformation in the patient-healthcare provider relationship that is now guided by various digital technology application. Patients have begun to evolve from consumers of the healthcare service into prosumers, co-creating value with healthcare providers due ti digital technologies and intermediaries enabling patients to co-create new services with various roles within the digital industry. And hospitals and labs have a growing interest in engaging patients with digital technologies to profit from the co-creation of this value. For instance, the development of sensors, wearables, and IoT devices and the connectivity between these mobile devices and computers are the key concepts driving remote and on-demand healthcare services, which alters the patient-healthcare provider relationship toward the digital realm.

As the healthcare organizations embrace digitalization, they are exploring investing in telemedicine, AI-enabled medical devices, blockchain electronic health records etc. Adapting to the digital era requires a shift toward a flexible and risk-taking mindset. It means letting go of outdated business processes and trusting that disruption will yield big results. Innovation is the name of the game here, with the main goal of streamlining physicians’ work, optimizing systems, improving patient outcomes, reducing human error, and lowering costs through amazing web and mobile experiences.

The task is laid out, those that take the leap to strategize and maintain a strategic edge will emerge winners!