By VINCE KURAITIS, GIRISH MURALIDHARAN & JODY RANCK
This entry is a component 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 a component 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.
At present’s put up will describe and focus on a possible successor to the EHR period — Unified Digital Well being Platforms (UDHPs). Right here’s an summary:
Background and Environmental Tendencies
Gartner’s Key Position in Characterizing the UDHP Motion
UDHP Worth Propositions
Examples of UDHPs
Later this week THCB will run the second part which can embody evaluation of the Mayo Clinic Platform.
Healthcare is fragmented. Information just isn’t standardized and has existed in silos. Sufferers and clinicians have disjointed experiences. Cost constructions create conflicting incentives.
Digital Well being Data (EHRs) had been as soon as touted as the important thing resolution for reworking healthcare to a contemporary, digitally-enabled trade. But, they proceed to frustrate clinicians with poor UI/UX and largely fulfill a main function as a system of document to doc claims submissions.
Current technological and enterprise tendencies have begun reworking healthcare right into a extra unified and built-in expertise:
HITECH (within the U.S.) drove the adoption of digital well being data throughout the trade
Requirements-compliant knowledge 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 fairly than maximizing fee-for-service volumes
AI’s emergence and adoption in healthcare fuels the necessity for extra – and higher – knowledge and knowledge liquidity.
New opponents in healthcare (Huge Tech, Huge Retail, digital well being ventures) compete primarily based on bettering affected person expertise, advancing VBC and VBP fashions, and built-in knowledge 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 put up on this collection — “Past Consciousness: Understanding the Magnitude of Level Resolution Fatigue in Healthcare”.
The tendencies 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 approach to scale new digital capabilities inside and throughout well being ecosystems and can, over time, exchange 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 put up by Higher. Notice that UDHPs are depicted as “sitting on prime” of EHRs and different siloed sources of well being knowledge:
Gartner continues to replace its market stories 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 put up, Altera is providing a complimentary copy of Gartner’s 2024 report on UDHPs.
This weblog put up is meant to focus extra on the enterprise and technique implications of UDHPs. We strongly advocate studying Gartner’s April 2024 report on UDHPs to realize a extra technical perspective.
Gartner additionally supplies an up to date (however not exhaustive) listing of UDHPs:
AWS HealthLake by Amazon Net Providers
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 Medical 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 Providers 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 Providers for FHIR by SAP
othersTBD?
The UDHP development is in very early phases. In its April 2024 report, Gartner estimates that the market is simply 5% penetrated and that UDHP adoption will take 5 to 10 years.
As of right this moment, the capabilities of UDHP choices will not be uniform. In an early market, it isn’t uncommon that early choices from firms 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 shortly in international locations exterior the U.S. Within the U.S., Epic and Cerner have a lock on well being techniques and try to turn into UDHPs themselves.
Within the appendix on the finish of the put up, we’ve offered an inventory of sources to clarify UDHPs additional.
UDHPs promise a spread of potential worth propositions:
Enhancing scientific care and unifying at present fragmented affected person and clinician experiences
Overcoming the restrictions of right this moment’s EHRs, e.g.,
Standardizing knowledge fashions throughout EHRs and digital well being apps
Facilitating bi-directional knowledge circulation
Supplying low code/no code instruments to handle workflow and processes throughout care groups, together with sufferers
Creating marketplaces for revolutionary third occasion apps
Capturing new, revolutionary sources of knowledge, e.g., regarding social determinants of well being, patient-generated knowledge, psychographic knowledge, and many others.
Providing modular, composable architectures
Enabling a standard infrastructure to unify right this moment’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 instance how UDHPs are being developed and deployed:
A vendor case research of the ServiceNow UDHP
A healthcare supplier case research on UDHP deployment – the Mayo Clinic Platform
We invite different UDHP distributors to contribute a substantive visitor put up describing their providing and the way clients deploy it. (Write to Vince vincek@bhtinfo for particulars.)
Case Research: ServiceNow’s Unified Digital Well being Platform in Healthcare Operations
One instance of a UDHP in apply is ServiceNow’s digital well being platform. This case research examines its structure, customization capabilities, and real-world purposes inside healthcare supplier settings.
ServiceNow’s UDHP Structure and Key Parts
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 knowledge, guaranteeing accessibility and accuracy throughout techniques.
Safety Layer: Supplies compliance frameworks and safety controls to guard delicate affected person data and cling to regulatory requirements.
Utility Layer: Hosts numerous healthcare purposes reminiscent of digital well being data (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 current 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 enable organizations to automate and optimize processes past customary out-of-the-box options.
Instance: Customized Workflow for Clinician Onboarding
A standard problem in healthcare is the complexity of onboarding new clinicians, particularly in giant hospital networks. Conventional onboarding processes contain a number of departments, together with HR, IT, and credentialing groups, usually resulting in inefficiencies.
Utilizing ServiceNow’s workflow automation instruments, a healthcare group can create a custom-made onboarding course of that:
Automates Credential Verification: Integrates with third-party verification companies to make sure compliance earlier than a clinician begins working towards.
Coordinates IT Provisioning: Routinely assigns required techniques entry, together with EHR permissions and safe messaging platforms.
Tracks Onboarding Progress: Supplies real-time visibility to HR and division managers, decreasing administrative delays.
By implementing a structured digital workflow, healthcare organizations can speed up onboarding occasions, cut back administrative workload, and improve compliance monitoring.
Revealed Examples of ServiceNow’s UDHP in Healthcare Suppliers
A number of healthcare organizations have deployed ServiceNow’s platform to handle 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 kit upkeep requests, workers allocation, and affected person coordination, resulting in elevated effectivity in care supply.
Elara Caring: Standardizing Processes Throughout A number of Places
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 total 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 knowledge, automation, and customized workflows, healthcare organizations can adapt the platform to their distinctive operational wants.
As extra healthcare suppliers shift in the direction of digital transformation, UDHPs will play a important function in bridging gaps between conventional healthcare IT techniques and rising digital well being improvements.
Vince Kuraitis JD/MBA is an impartial advisor with over 35 years’ expertise throughout 150+ healthcare & tech firms. He publishes The Healthcare Platform Weblog, the place this put up first appeared. Girish Muralidharan was an SVP at GE Healthcare till April 2024 and held quite a lot of Govt enterprise administration roles throughout Imaging gear, tech enabled companies, digital platforms & options during the last 2 many years.Dr. Jody Ranck is a researcher with over 30 years of expertise in international and home US well being expertise and lined AI, knowledge analytics, and SDoH with Chilmark Analysis.
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