资源描述
HEALTHCAREWhat It Will Take for Healthcare Organizations to Move into the Digital AgeBy Robert Hoyle Brown & Patricia BirchThe Center for the Future of Work2 | HEALTHCARETHE WORK AHEADThe Work Ahead is a research series providing insight and guidance on how businesses and jobs will evolve in the digital economy.In this installment, we compare and contrast the viewpoints of healthcare payers and providers; identify ways in which new digital technologies will enable workplace (and work process) innovation; and analyze the magnitude of the impact that emerging digital technologies will have on the industry by 2020 or 2025. For healthcare payers and providers, the digital revolution offers a powerful prescription for transforming an industry value chain in need of drastic modernization. Our latest study shows the way forward to the future of work for healthcare.3THE WORK AHEAD IN HEALTHCARE The healthcare industry is on the brink of major and ultimately overdue reinvention. Healthcare organizations must face new and necessary business-technology change to capitalize on the promise of the digital era. From unlocking the value of data and placing greater reliance on bots, to addressing security concerns and connecting a fragmented industry, there is hard work ahead for digital mastery in an industry that represents nearly one-fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Given these weighty challenges, healthcare payers and providers are deep in thought about how to get from “here” to “there.” Merely dabbling in digital wont cut it. Much as weve already seen with fin-tech, ride-sharing and binge-viewing entertainment providers in the last few years, delayed action by the industry establishment favors the rise of new entrants and threatens the survival of traditional organizations. Urgency is required for people, processes and platforms in healthcare to catch up with other industries that are well along the way in their digital transformations. If the industry successfully prepares for the work ahead, healthcare consumers can finally look forward to the convenience and service they regularly experience in other parts of their lives. If not, healthcare organizations will suffer the consequences. In order to understand the changing nature of work, the changing nature of commerce and the changing characteristics of success for healthcare payers and providers, Cognizants Center for the Future of Work in conjunction with the renowned economist Nouriel Roubini surveyed top executives at leading companies around the world to gain insight into how the future of work is coming to life today. We surveyed 348 healthcare payers and providers worldwide, hailing from the ranks of senior executives (see Methodology, page 24). Our study reveals that healthcare players foresee a huge amount of work ahead in their digital strategies, with only one in 10 executives saying they are even moderately ahead of their peers in other industries today. 4 | HEALTHCARETHE WORK AHEADEven more alarming: Three-quarters of payers and providers that we studied havent saved one dime on operational costs by using digital technologies. We also routinely hear in our work with healthcare clients about the high level of dissatisfaction among physicians and other caregivers with existing digital transformation attempts.Executives we surveyed know that big changes are coming by the end of the decade, but its unclear exactly how the industry will harness digital to get from now to 2020. New approaches like telemedicine, robotic-assisted surgery and AI-augmented diagnosis and prevention will be required to drive the nearly 30% boost in digitally-driven revenue growth envisioned by industry executives. While mastering digital will be beneficial for payers and providers, it will also drive a renaissance in how we and future generations stay healthy and thrive in the 21st century.5Huge improvement in cost savings from digital are needed now! Seventy-six percent of both payers and providers have not experienced any cost improvements due to digital. Doubling dollars through digital channel but how? By 2018, digital will yield an 11% top- and bottom-line improvement for healthcare players, which essentially represents a doubling from todays revenue impact of 5.2%. Expectations for healthcare are huge by 2020 or is it a “digital delusion”? Roughly 10% of healthcare executives think theyre digitally “far ahead” (or even “moderately ahead”) of their peers. By 2018, 60% optimistically believe theyll be ahead of their peers.Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will be key drivers in the transformation of healthcare work but how will these changes be operationalized? Our respondents firmly believe that “as tasks are automated, work will become more strategic.” By 2020, AI and analytics top the new investment agenda, with an expected significant impact from physical and software robots too. Whether your company is a healthcare payer or provider, the time to act is now. Leaders need to make some critical choices regarding initiatives that will quickly allow the benefits of digital to help their businesses navigate the digital shift. Despite the aforementioned challenges and unresolved questions, the scale of the opportunity is massive and in our view ultimately achievable.Major findings & unanswered questions include the following: While not always aligned, healthcare providers and payers share many similarities in their attitudes, beliefs and priorities. 6 | HEALTHCARETHE WORK AHEADWhile it may sound counter-intuitive, fixating on cost savings wont be enough; if digital change is properly handled, healthcare companies will also reap unprecedented value from the next generation of services and offerings. Currently, healthcare companies are spending (a bit of) money to make (a lot of) money. That may sound like a mixed bag, but what are companies potentially missing? What are their future expectations for operating more effectively and efficiently to simultaneously innovate and reduce costs? SPENDING MONEY TO MAKE MONEY: DIGITAL ECONOMICS FOR THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY7But first, some bad news: Digital initiatives, according to our respondents, have actually increased healthcare costs 0.7%, to be exact during the last year. Said another way, only about 25% of respondents have actually saved any money as a result of their digital initiatives (see Figure 1). At first blush, that might be rather shocking. But a more sobering, realistic view is that healthcare players know they need to act fast and invest in new digital technologies, modernize aging IT infrastructure and update business processes to take advantage of new digital thinking. As the saying goes, “no pain, no” well, you know the rest. Now for (a bit of) better news: Digital has improved organizations revenues by 5.2% during the same period, according to respondents (see Figure 2). Thats a 5% capital gain directly attributable to digital. But you cant just take a scalpel to labor costs by cutting staff, nurses and doctors. Radically reducing healthcare talent will cause significant market disruption, since health plans and hospitals are usually some of the largest employers in the cities in which they reside. Even more important, skilled healthcare practitioners are not dispensable; rather than making “widgets,” these individuals are trained to provide good, empathic bedside care to their patients. Increasingly sophisticated digital technologies are helping to drive down some of healthcares highest cost categories without sacrificing critical healthcare staff. Thats a great development for all participants, as patients are empowered to concentrate on their personal wellness while permitting caregivers to focus on well, caregiving!Through 2018, the cost picture for healthcare respondents does improve. Costs are expected to decrease by 2.4% one of the largest decreases of any industry included in the study. But we think thats a conservative estimate, and that there is a far larger, untapped opportunity in cost reduction due to digital. Companies such as TriZetto (a Cognizant healthcare software subsidiary) are using software robots to decrease healthcare payer costs by as much as 90% for some middle-office business processes. Only 24% of either healthcare payer or provider respondents actually saved any money as a result of their 2015 digital initiatives.Cost Savings from Digital in 2015: Healthcare Payers and ProvidersSource: Cognizant Center for the Future of Work, 2016Cost Increase 39%Cost Decrease 24%Cost Increase 46%Cost Decrease 24%No Change 30%No Change 37%Healthcare Payers Healthcare ProvidersCost Savings from Digital in 2015: Healthcare Payers and ProvidersOnly 24% of either healthcare payer or provider respondents actually saved any money as a result of their 2015 digital initiatives.Response base: 348 senior healthcare executives. Source: Cognizant Center for the Future of WorkFigure 18 | HEALTHCARETHE WORK AHEADWhats more, respondents expect to directly boost their 2018 top-line revenues using digital by 8.6%. Adding the aforementioned cost reduction estimates, thats an 11% improvement to the top and bottom lines by 2018 essentially a doubling from todays revenue impact of 5.2%. Whats the chief mechanism driving the most significant gains? Today, 17% of payers and 22% of providers see digitals revenue impact chiefly stemming from sales, marketing and customer service processes. Going forward, the impact of these processes will remain strong, with 16% and 20% of payer and provider respondents, respectively, believing these areas will be the primary drivers for lower costs by 2018. (Both groups of respondents rated digitals impact on revenues as a secondary driver.)Respondents expect to directly boost their 2018 top-line revenues using digital by 8.6%, which adds up to an 11% improvement to the top and bottom lines by 2018. Were now in an era when traditional players are threatened by new entrants that have been “born digital.” Recently, it looked as if the future would belong to upstarts like Oscar Health, a health insurance start-up in New York that sells individual health insurance plans, both directly and through health insurance marketplaces. Out of the gate, the companys look-and-feel attracted a cohort of millennial customers (most of whom, being younger, are healthier, get sick less and are, therefore, more profitable). But even Oscar has come to realize how grueling it can be to succeed in the broader conditions of todays healthcare marketplace.1Clearly, continuous and rapid evolution is required for all health ecosystem participants to stave off incumbent and new entrant threats, whether they are simply moving legacy systems to the cloud, or pursuing more complex goals, such as instrumenting processes or consumers to converge the digital and physical worlds.Average costs rose in 2015 due to digital, but revenues increased. Companies think potential positive cost impact is eminently (and potentially) achievable today. Cost improvements are expected to complement outsized revenue gain by 2018.Cost and Revenue Impact of Digital in Healthcare2015 *2015Potential Impact*2015-Potential represents the potential cost and revenue that leaders estimate theyd have seen in 2015 if they had immediately implemented all currently available digital technologies2018-3%-1%1%3%5%7%9%5.2%0.7%-1.1%-2.4%7. 3%8.6%0%Cost spent/reduced on/by digital as a percentage of revenuePercentage of revenue from digital Cost and Revenue Impact of Digital in HealthcareAverage costs rose in 2015 due to digital, but revenues increased. Companies think potential positive cost impact is eminently (and potentially) achievable today. Cost improvements are expected to complement outsized revenue gain by 2018.Response base: 348 senior healthcare executives. Source: Cognizant Center for the Future of WorkFigure 29The time has come for a new approach to drive, guide, sustain and quantify the gains to be realized from rapid digital evolution in healthcare. Respondents voiced high expectations for digitals impact on revenue by 2020. In some respects, its almost as if they believe a digital “magic wand” will be waved to reap outsized gains. We know that in reality, the work ahead demands that business and IT executives in healthcare apply real investments to ground-breaking digital initiatives that undo the “tyranny of the status quo.”Whats a “digital revenue channel” in the context of healthcare? In book retailing, its fairly easy to follow the developments of digital revenue channels just look at the rise of Amazon and a host of other e-commerce examples. Meanwhile, in healthcare, it seems a foregone conclusion that patients still need to physically see doctors. Consider, though, the revenue opportunities that open up when new digital channels emerge, such as greater access to preventative monitoring, A MAGICAL FIVE YEARS: HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR HEALTHCARES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION virtual house calls and remote reading of a fitness tracker by nurses from hundreds of miles away all while never having to physically set foot inside a doctors office. While the future may be bright for digital doctors, recent history suggests some caution. It may seem jaded, but many healthcare practitioners feel theyve “seen this movie before”: The headlong rush to require electronic medical records (EMRs) in every hospital and physicians office has not won a lot of fans among clinicians. Indeed, as the CEO of Athenahealth recently commented, “Healthcare is the only industry where digital has had a negative productivity impact.”2Therefore, the time has come for a new approach to drive, guide, sustain and quantify the gains to be realized from rapid digital evolution in healthcare.10 | HEALTHCARETHE WORK AHEADOur research reveals some interesting clues: Digital as a revenue channel will essentially double between now and 2020. About one-third of both providers (28%) and payers (34%) in the study think that 20% or more of their revenues originated from digital channels as of 2015. By 2020, however, the “doubling” shows up, with 69% of providers believing that 20% or more of revenues will come through digital channels, and 73% of payers thinking it will be 20% or more (see Figures 3a and 3b, next page). For results to match those high expectations, a good deal of work will need to occur over the next few years. Payers will need to place big bets on digital, automation and platform strategies to better compete with new, “born-digital” entrants. Examples include the aforementioned Oscar Health, nationwide provider network OneMedical, the Kaiser network (which couples the payer/provider function in one group) and Zoom, which targets young adults in Oregon and Washington with quick, accessible care. Some stalwarts may want to clin
展开阅读全文