By VINCE KURAITIS, GIRISH MURALIDHARAN & JODY RANCK
This entry is an element 3 of three within the collection Platforming Healthcare — The Lengthy View. This essay is the subsequent within the collection entitled “Platforming Healthcare — the Lengthy View”. The collection presents a 30-Yr Framework for Platforming Healthcare. An up to date v2.0 of a graphic depicting this 30-Yr Framework is proven beneath.
This entry is an element 3 of three within the collection Platforming Healthcare — The Lengthy View. This essay is the subsequent within the collection entitled “Platforming Healthcare — the Lengthy View”. The collection presents a 30-Yr Framework for Platforming Healthcare. An up to date v2.0 of a graphic depicting this 30-Yr Framework is proven above.
As we speak’s submit will describe and focus on a possible successor to the EHR period — Unified Digital Well being Platforms (UDHPs). Right here’s an outline:
- Background and Environmental Developments
- Gartner’s Key Function in Characterizing the UDHP Motion
- UDHP Worth Propositions
- Examples of UDHPs
Later this week THCB will run the second part which is able to embody evaluation of the Mayo Clinic Platform.
Healthcare is fragmented. Information shouldn’t be standardized and has existed in silos. Sufferers and clinicians have disjointed experiences. Cost buildings create conflicting incentives.
Digital Well being Information (EHRs) had been as soon as touted as the important thing answer for remodeling healthcare to a contemporary, digitally-enabled business. But, they proceed to frustrate clinicians with poor UI/UX and largely fulfill a major function as a system of document to doc claims submissions.
Current technological and enterprise traits have begun remodeling healthcare right into a extra unified and built-in expertise:
- HITECH (within the U.S.) drove the adoption of digital well being information throughout the business
- Requirements-compliant information fashions and APIs throughout numerous options are permitting third-party integrations so as to add new performance
- Worth-based care (VBC) and value-based cost (VBP) fashions incentivize bettering high quality moderately than maximizing fee-for-service volumes
- AI’s emergence and adoption in healthcare fuels the necessity for extra – and higher – information and information liquidity.
- New rivals in healthcare (Massive Tech, Massive Retail, digital well being ventures) compete based mostly on bettering affected person expertise, advancing VBC and VBP fashions, and built-in information and analytics
- Accessible cloud computing infrastructure is enabling a plethora of **-as-a-Service enterprise fashions
Healthcare organizations need built-in options, no more level options. See the earlier weblog submit on this collection — “Past Consciousness: Understanding the Magnitude of Level Resolution Fatigue in Healthcare”.
The traits and forces listed above open the door and create the necessity for a brand new class of enterprise software program – Unified Digital Well being Platforms (UDHPs).
A December 2022 Gartner Market Information report characterised the long-term potential:
The DHP shift will emerge as probably the most cost-effective and technically environment friendly strategy to scale new digital capabilities inside and throughout well being ecosystems and can, over time, change the dominant period of the monolithic digital well being document (EHR).
Whereas Gartner makes use of the time period “Digital Well being Platform (DHP), we use the time period “Unified Digital Well being Platform” as a result of 1) it’s extra descriptive of the structure and its capabilities, and a couple of) it distinguishes UDHPs from the 1000’s of different digital well being platforms that adjust extremely in perform.
The DHP Reference Structure is illustrated in a weblog submit by Higher. Notice that UDHPs are depicted as “sitting on high” of EHRs and different siloed sources of well being information:
Gartner continues to replace its market reviews on UDHPs. An April 2024 replace is entitled: “Innovation Perception: Digital Well being Platforms Speed up Transformation”. As of the date of publishing this weblog submit, Altera is providing a complimentary copy of Gartner’s 2024 report on UDHPs.
This weblog submit is meant to focus extra on the enterprise and technique implications of UDHPs. We strongly suggest studying Gartner’s April 2024 report on UDHPs to achieve a extra technical perspective.
Gartner additionally offers an up to date (however not exhaustive) listing of UDHPs:
- AWS HealthLake by Amazon Net Companies
- Higher Platform by Higher
- DrCloud EHR by EnSoftek
- Engagement Rx by Avidon Well being
- Edison Intelligence Platform by GE Healthcare
- Google Cloud Healthcare Information Engine by Google
- IBM Well being Insights and IBM Watson Annotator for Scientific Information by IBM
- Healthshare and Intersystems IRIS for Well being by Intersystems
- Kyruus Join by Kyruus Well being
- Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare by Microsoft
- Miya Precision by Alcidion
- Philips Healthsuite Digital Platform by Philips
- SAS Well being by SAS
- ServiceNow Healthcare and Life Sciences Companies Administration by ServiceNow
We’ll add our personal candidates to the listing:
- Epic EMR by Epic
- Well being Intelligence Platform by vitagroup
- Innovacer Well being Cloud by Innovacer
- Nucleus for Healthcare by NTTDATA
- Oracle Well being EHR by Oracle
- Salesforce Well being Cloud by Salesforce
- SAP Well being Information Companies for FHIR by SAP
- othersTBD?
The UDHP pattern is in very early levels. In its April 2024 report, Gartner estimates that the market is barely 5% penetrated and that UDHP adoption will take 5 to 10 years.
As of as we speak, the capabilities of UDHP choices aren’t uniform. In an early market, it isn’t uncommon that early choices from corporations will differ. We’ll focus on some attainable ramifications within the part beneath on “Enterprise and Strategic Implications of UDHPs”.
It’s attainable that UDHP adoption will transfer extra rapidly in nations outdoors the U.S. Within the U.S., Epic and Cerner have a lock on well being techniques and are trying to turn into UDHPs themselves.
Within the appendix on the finish of the submit, we’ve supplied a listing of sources to clarify UDHPs additional.
UDHPs promise a variety of potential worth propositions:
- Enhancing medical care and unifying presently fragmented affected person and clinician experiences
- Overcoming the restrictions of as we speak’s EHRs, e.g.,
- Standardizing information fashions throughout EHRs and digital well being apps
- Facilitating bi-directional information movement
- Supplying low code/no code instruments to handle workflow and processes throughout care groups, together with sufferers
- Creating marketplaces for modern third celebration apps
- Capturing new, modern sources of information, e.g., referring to social determinants of well being, patient-generated information, psychographic information, and so on.
- Providing modular, composable architectures
- Enabling a typical infrastructure to unify as we speak’s disparate point-solution choices
- Offering aggressive benefit. We’ll focus on this extra extensively beneath.
We’ll present a few case research as an example how UDHPs are being developed and deployed:
- A vendor case examine of the ServiceNow UDHP
- A healthcare supplier case examine on UDHP deployment – the Mayo Clinic Platform
We invite different UDHP distributors to contribute a substantive visitor submit describing their providing and the way clients deploy it. (Write to Vince vincek@bhtinfo for particulars.)
Case Examine: ServiceNow’s Unified Digital Well being Platform in Healthcare Operations
One instance of a UDHP in follow is ServiceNow’s digital well being platform. This case examine examines its structure, customization capabilities, and real-world functions inside healthcare supplier settings.
ServiceNow’s UDHP Structure and Key Elements
As proven within the diagram beneath, ServiceNow’s digital well being platform is structured to combine a number of healthcare workflows whereas guaranteeing compliance and safety. The platform is constructed on a multi-layered structure that features:
- Information Layer: A centralized repository for structured and unstructured healthcare information, guaranteeing accessibility and accuracy throughout techniques.
- Safety Layer: Offers compliance frameworks and safety controls to guard delicate affected person info and cling to regulatory requirements.
- Utility Layer: Hosts numerous healthcare functions reminiscent of digital well being information (EHR), affected person engagement instruments, and supplier workflow administration.
- Infrastructure Layer: Cloud-based and on-premises options to assist scalability, availability, and interoperability throughout a number of healthcare techniques.
The layered strategy allows healthcare organizations to combine present IT techniques whereas adopting new digital well being options.
Customized Workflow Capabilities: Enhancing Operational Effectivity
One of many key benefits of ServiceNow’s UDHP is its functionality to assist customized workflows tailor-made to the wants of healthcare suppliers. Customized workflows permit organizations to automate and optimize processes past commonplace out-of-the-box options.
Instance: Customized Workflow for Clinician Onboarding
A typical problem in healthcare is the complexity of onboarding new clinicians, particularly in massive hospital networks. Conventional onboarding processes contain a number of departments, together with HR, IT, and credentialing groups, typically resulting in inefficiencies.
Utilizing ServiceNow’s workflow automation instruments, a healthcare group can create a personalized onboarding course of that:
- Automates Credential Verification: Integrates with third-party verification providers to make sure compliance earlier than a clinician begins practising.
- Coordinates IT Provisioning: Routinely assigns required techniques entry, together with EHR permissions and safe messaging platforms.
- Tracks Onboarding Progress: Offers real-time visibility to HR and division managers, decreasing administrative delays.
By implementing a structured digital workflow, healthcare organizations can speed up onboarding instances, scale back administrative workload, and improve compliance monitoring.
Printed Examples of ServiceNow’s UDHP in Healthcare Suppliers
A number of healthcare organizations have deployed ServiceNow’s platform to deal with operational inefficiencies and enhance service supply. The next examples spotlight how UDHP capabilities have been utilized in several healthcare settings.
- Novant Well being: Lowering Administrative Bottlenecks
Novant Well being applied ServiceNow to streamline IT service administration and automate healthcare workflows. By leveraging UDHP capabilities, the group improved system uptime and decreased delays in affected person care brought on by IT-related points. Automated workflows ensured that clinicians had speedy entry to mandatory techniques, decreasing time spent on administrative requests.
- Sentara Healthcare: Digital Workflow Optimization
Sentara Healthcare used ServiceNow’s digital workflows to combine numerous operational processes throughout its community of hospitals and outpatient facilities. The platform enabled real-time monitoring of apparatus upkeep requests, employees allocation, and affected person coordination, resulting in elevated effectivity in care supply.
- Elara Caring: Standardizing Processes Throughout A number of Areas
Elara Caring, a house healthcare supplier, confronted challenges in managing affected person referrals, caregiver scheduling, and compliance documentation. By adopting ServiceNow’s UDHP, Elara Caring unified these processes right into a single workflow, decreasing errors and bettering general affected person service coordination.
Conclusion
ServiceNow’s UDHP illustrates the potential of digital platforms in optimizing healthcare workflows, bettering operational effectivity, and guaranteeing compliance. By leveraging structured information, automation, and customized workflows, healthcare organizations can adapt the platform to their distinctive operational wants.
As extra healthcare suppliers shift in direction of digital transformation, UDHPs will play a crucial function in bridging gaps between conventional healthcare IT techniques and rising digital well being improvements.
Vince Kuraitis JD/MBA is an unbiased advisor with over 35 years’ expertise throughout 150+ healthcare & tech corporations. He publishes The Healthcare Platform Weblog, the place this submit first appeared. Girish Muralidharan was an SVP at GE Healthcare till April 2024 and held a wide range of Govt enterprise administration roles throughout Imaging tools, tech enabled providers, digital platforms & options during the last 2 a long time.Dr. Jody Ranck is a researcher with over 30 years of expertise in international and home US well being expertise and coated AI, information analytics, and SDoH with Chilmark Analysis.