Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare companies have had to develop new ways of delivering care. But one aspect has remained constant: having effective digital tools is critical in order to make it to the future.
Even though the importance of digital strategies is not a new concept, it has taken on whole new meaning now that healthcare providers have become more reliant on them during the pandemic.
If a healthcare organization hopes to survive, it will need to adopt digital platforms that patients can actually use to receive proper care, according to Neil Patel, the president of Healthbox, a HIMSS innovation company.
“The context of digital strategy and why it’s so critical right now is fundamentally different,” he said. “It’s basically to sustain the ongoing operations of your healthcare-delivery system.”
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THE IMPACT OF COVID-19
Before the switch, most companies used their digital platforms to help consumers easily pay their bills or schedule appointments, according to Patel.
That quickly changed once the pandemic began.
“Health systems almost overnight had to stand up a full virtual care offering because the brick-and-mortar care-delivery models that they had existed on for forever were no longer going to work because of COVID-19 related restrictions,” Patel said.
Without traditional ways of receiving healthcare, the demand for virtual care has increased significantly. Frost & Sullivan estimates that the prevalence of telehealth will increase by 64.3% nationwide this year because of COVID-19.
The companies that already had strong digital teams before the pandemic seem to be coming out on top, Patel said. Those companies that already had a platform that patients engaged with were able to scale what they already had to meet the new needs instead of having to create a completely new system.
“The health systems that had already invested the time and effort to put together a clear digital strategy and were executing on it … are in a less-frenzied state of digital-strategy development,” Patel said.
He also said that while many healthcare organizations are still experiencing financial losses and layoffs, they are also seeing growth in their digital teams.
The investor dollars continue to pour into digital health amid the pandemic. By the end of Q1 this year, U.S. digital health companies raised a record-breaking $3.1 billion – more than 1.5 times the amount raised during any previous Q1, according to a Rock Health report.
That trend doesn’t appear to be letting up. In Q2 there have been major investments, including a $194 million investment in telehealth giant AmWell, and a $100 million raise from digital mental health company Mindstrong.
Source: Mobihealth News
