Learn more about Northeastern's Online MS in Management: Digital Transformation Concentration
Economical and accessible healthcare systems are essential to a healthy society. However, this isn’t always the case.
According to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, healthcare spending rose to $4.5 trillion or $13,493 per person in 2022—a 4.1 percent increase from 2021. Since this increase in medical costs can put a significant burden on patients, it’s important to combat this harmful trend.
To achieve this though, healthcare managers and administrators must understand how to create and propose new and innovative ideas that can make healthcare more affordable. Even if your healthcare facility is leveraging technology to cut costs, there are several ways you can make an impact in your organization and on patient outcomes.
Here’s a closer look at digital health strategy and how you can create new ways to make healthcare more affordable.
A Comprehensive Guide to Careers in Digital Transformation
What Is Digital Health Strategy?
Digital health strategy uses digital tools like telemedicine platforms, wearable health devices, and health apps to optimize healthcare delivery, improve health outcomes, and foster patient-centered processes.
While these digital health trends are important if your facility is undergoing a digital transformation, they can compromise the quality of care if these technologies are not implemented thoughtfully.
“I think when people talk about a digital health strategy, they tend to focus on the managing patient interactions or technical capabilities and not necessarily understand what you are trying to achieve, which is neither,” says Patrick Streck, founder of Estli Consulting and a guest lecturer for Northeastern’s D'Amore-McKim School of Business. “What you're actually trying to accomplish is leveraging technology in a way that helps people become more informed, more engaged, and to help them lead healthier lives.”
If you’re interested in learning more about new ways to use technology in healthcare to cut costs, here are five ways it can make healthcare more affordable.
5 Ways Technology Can Make Healthcare More Affordable
1. Enables Preventative Techniques
Disease prevention is the most effective way to reduce healthcare expenses. By adopting healthier practices earlier in life, patients can increase their physical resilience, reduce costly hospitalization visits, and lower the risk of serious illnesses like diabetes and heart disease—chronic conditions which can be very expensive to treat.
The majority of healthcare facilities have implemented electronic health records (EHRs)—digital versions of medical charts that provide real-time information about medical histories to patients and their healthcare providers.
These records offer a massive amount of data to providers and patients which can aid in better preventative measures by:
- Identifying early warning markers
- Developing more effective screening tools
- Educating the public on ways to support long-term wellness
Despite the fact that EHRs have revolutionized recording patient medical history, healthcare systems still struggle with the effective utilization of this data across various platforms. This means healthcare leaders need to find ways to seamlessly consolidate healthcare data to aid in more efficient preventative techniques.
“Consolidation of care through unified data access for providers leads to much more efficient care, particularly for those with chronic conditions or multiple health factors in play,” Streck says. “The more informed both patient and provider can be, the quicker and faster you're able to move things forward in terms of treatment and care.”
2. Enhances Early Detection
When patients and providers can’t prevent illness, early detection and proactive care can still save healthcare costs. Despite some initial hesitation, artificial intelligence (AI) has swiftly improved healthcare diagnostics through its ability to augment the expertise of medical experts.
For example, the pandemic prompted an increase in remote patient monitoring using the Internet of Things (IoT)—networks of cloud-based devices that collect and exchange data. Remote diagnostic devices made it possible to collect continuous data on vital signs and symptoms to keep providers up to date on developing conditions.
While this data is helpful to both the patient and the provider, AI can create predictive models in healthcare analytics to determine whether different symptoms, behaviors, and health conditions are connected. When used effectively, these models can help identify genetic or predisposed conditions before they become costly. However, AI is reliant on data and, when populated with diagnostic tests beyond the norm, these models are capable of serving the unique needs of the patient.
“There's this whole argument that an insurer is only going to pay for a test that provides a positive or negative in support of an identified symptom,” Streck continues. “They're much less likely to pay for a test that provides an indicator of something that may or may not happen.”
This is where healthcare leaders need to make the argument that leveraging technology for early detection is essential to cutting avoidable costs.
“It’s just one example, but there are tests that can detect for more than 50 types of cancers as a pre-indicator, analyzing your blood to pick up on proteins that may be indicative of the cancer,” Streck continues. “They can also provide detail as to where the protein originated so that your diagnostics can become more focused. These indicators are microscopic, but incredibly powerful. Pursuing an indicator of cancer prior to any symptoms greatly improves treatment options and survivability.”
3. Meet the Patient Where They Are
Telemedicine is one of the most mutually beneficial ways to reach people without placing unnecessary financial burden on patients, caregivers, or providers. This is because attending repetitive checkups and testing can be challenging for people with chronic health issues, low income, or limited transportation.
“Sometimes, it's patient hesitancy,” Streck says. “Other times, it's patient logistics. They need to take a bus, or the person who typically cares for them couldn't drive them that day. But now, telemedicine facilitates the opportunity to move those things into the home.”
According to a Dispatch Health case study, 95 percent of caregivers prefer in-home care over the traditional hospital setting. Therefore, healthcare facilities need to have the capabilities to offer these services to patients.
When telemedicine is coupled with remote healthcare delivery, where caregivers come to the home, true transformation begins. A patient that requires infusion therapy can be treated in their living room or a surgical patient can be evaluated as they progress through their post-operative recovery.
This requires a shift in both perspective and investment though. Do you spend more on expanding a facility that people have to come to or do you develop a network of digitally enabled capabilities?
Where possible, health systems can leverage existing infrastructure in your healthcare facility—networks, data centers, and office space for clinician remote “studios.”
4. Automates Administrative Tasks
Leveraging automation is a highly productive way to combat waste and lower expenses in process-heavy administrative tasks.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, administrative costs—such as insurance claim filing, human resources, and quality reporting—account for around 30 percent of U.S. healthcare costs. As a result, insurers and providers often charge more fees to clients to offset these high administrative costs.
You should consider automating routine tasks like:
- Online appointment scheduling
- Claims processing
- Data entry
- Physician credentialing
Administrative errors are also costly in healthcare. If you are hoping to reduce human error in your healthcare facility, coding and billing automation software often include features that prompt users to review inconsistencies. Automation can also eliminate repetitive tasks that often bog down healthcare managers hoping to continuously improve and innovate their facility.
For smaller facilities that need to stay up to date with more large-scale hospitals, automated billing processes can improve revenue cycle management and incorporate self-service options that make payments easy to complete and collect. This can make a huge difference if cash flow has been inconsistent in the past.
Overall, these advancements free up valuable time for doctors and staff to focus more on patient outcomes, resulting in higher-quality, affordable healthcare.
5. Streamlines Operations
Data analytics has become instrumental in identifying operational inefficiencies in healthcare.
For example, the larger the organization and client base, the easier it is to develop bottlenecks and wastefulness with poor resource allocation and process management. However, data analytics can help healthcare facilities rapidly evaluate administrative and clinical data—such as financial records, inventory, staff workflow, and patient lifecycles—to identify plans for improvement.
While healthcare analytics is leveraged to some degree in hospitals, administrators should consider the cost benefits of collating vast amounts of data with AI to find unnecessary costs and areas of improvement.
“An AI model applied to financial operations is going to be able to highlight some of those repetitive transactions or behaviors that you wouldn't otherwise see,” Streck says. “It's a very strong trend analysis tool. In addition to identifying an anomaly, AI can help determine the factors that are feeding into it.”
This can make a huge difference for healthcare managers who are charged with identifying areas where a hospital can save money.
AI doesn’t just streamline the data side of healthcare, but the supply chain management as well.
Since supplies and equipment are crucial in the healthcare industry, investing in digital devices with tracking features, such as Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), is essential for healthcare providers to quickly locate equipment like IV pumps and computer carts.
As Streck points out, facilities with fewer resources can take even simpler steps to improve logistics and supply chain management by using barcodes and QR codes to track equipment and medicate or update patient data.
Armed with these diverse insights, providers can significantly reduce costly inefficiency and errors.
Become a Leader in Digital Transformation
Innovation and digital transformation will continue to drive the future of healthcare, and professionals who are skilled at implementing a strategic vision will have countless opportunities to grow in the field.
Northeastern’s MS in Digital Transformation in Healthcare program can give aspiring healthcare leaders the expertise to assess the operational and clinical needs of healthcare facilities and develop solutions that better serve patients. With an online format and a faculty of leading healthcare experts, the program is designed to deliver experiential learning at a pace that suits you.
To learn more about the program, contact an admission counselor to discover how the program can prepare you for healthcare innovation.
