We live in an unprecedented era of technological innovation. Anyone who has worked in healthcare has certainly witnessed first-hand the sweeping changes innovation has delivered to the industry. From vastly improved medical technologies to intelligent operations management technologies—and everything in between — we’re seeing a major technological revolution in healthcare that is improving both outcomes and bottom lines simultaneously.
That said, it seems like a new technology is introduced every day, making it increasingly difficult to cut the wheat from the chaff when evaluating what’s needed. What’s more, investing in technology for technology’s sake is always a recipe for failure. Technology should be developed and deployed to solve real problems. Here are three technologies that are shaping the future of healthcare and transforming medical facilities.
Human Capital Management
In large healthcare systems and hospitals, staffing is almost always an issue. In fact, the Covid-19 health crisis revealed major staffing challenges, where some systems were stretched far beyond their breaking point. Add in talent shortages and labor disputes, and you’re left with a bleak picture about the ability of healthcare systems to deliver positive results in the very near future. To help solve some of the issues related to staffing, organizations need to invest in human capital management systems (HCMs). Common in HR departments at enterprise-level organizations, HCMs can help healthcare organizations manage every aspect of the employee lifecycle—recruiting, onboarding, management, and training. These comprehensive systems digitize the entire process and all related functions such as payroll, time and attendance, paid time off management, and benefits. But they do so much more than that, including skills development, talent acquisition, and employee engagement. Plus, they often provide powerful analytics to gain insights into staffing needs, performance, and other crucial organizational performance metrics.
Mobile Health
We’re living in a new wireless era, thanks to mobile technologies that are opening new doors not only for accessing patient information, but for diagnosing patients as well. Not only can physicians check a patient’s status on their smartphone, for example, but mobile technologies are allowing nursing staff to gather and transmit patient vitals and other data in new and interesting ways. What’s more, wearable technologies that monitor heartrate, activity, and more are starting to wind their way into healthcare systems, giving physicians access to even more data to make even more accurate diagnoses and better recommendations.
Artificial Intelligence
None of the above two technologies are really possible without artificial intelligence (AI) systems that collect, manage, and analyzes data. In reality, AI is a sort of catch-all term for a variety of technologies, each of which has a different function and ability in terms of healthcare management. In fact, AIs can be used to improve both administration and operations. AI systems can help with clinical diagnoses, human resource management, marketing, and many other areas of operations. For example, AI can analyze patient volume trends and help identify when staffing needs to be either increased or even reduced, as well as potential opportunities to streamline workflows. AIs can be used to learn from and analyze diagnoses, ultimately helping clinical staff to make better decisions about treatment, taking into account individual patient health history. AIs can also monitor and identify trends in various supplies, predicting potential needs and automating ordering.
Ultimately, the healthcare systems of the future will likely come to rely on AI to help them achieve not only financial goals, but also to deliver better health outcomes If you’d like to learn more how your healthcare system can get the most out of AI technology, contact us.