Big-name companies and startups alike are turning their sights to the healthcare industry. Digital health companies received $14.7 billion in venture funding in the first half of 2021, surpassing the funding for all of 2020. Industry giants like Apple, Walmart, and Amazon, and growing startups like Hims | Hers and Clover are redefining the healthcare experience, creating healthcare solutions with digital as the foundation of their services. 

These new digital disruptors are forcing health systems to reconsider the “status quo” of healthcare and underscoring the importance of digital in order to survive — and thrive. While health systems are aware of the threat, many are not doing enough to incorporate digital as a core component of their business. 

The traditional health system business model is at risk. Organizations that invest in digital will win. Those that don’t will be left behind.

Defining digital transformation

The landscape of care is rapidly shifting, spurred by COVID-19 and digital disruptors entering the marketplace. Digital is no longer optional for health systems that want to thrive in the new normal, and creating an organization-wide digital transformation strategy is the best way to ensure a successful, long-lasting digital program.

To truly “be digital,” a health system must create an organization-wide digital transformation strategy that centers digital as a top priority for the organization and weaves it into the existing system-wide strategic plan. At its core, digital transformation marries data, automation, and virtual capabilities with a  strategy that helps define top areas across an organization where digital can make a meaningful, lasting, and rapid impact. 

Digital transformation is not throwing digital solutions at a problem to see what sticks. A digital transformation strategy is backed by internal and competitive research and aligned with organization-wide goals. It is a realistic roadmap to becoming a digital organization, supported by data and designed to address a health system’s unique challenges, embody the core mission, and enable the faster achievement of goals. 

Tracking digital transformation KPIs

There are many steps that go into creating an organization-wide digital transformation strategy, as highlighted in our white paper, Healthcare Digitized: Building a Digital Transformation Strategy at Your Health System. However, one of the key areas for continued success is the appropriate, long-term tracking of KPIs to measure impact and tweak the strategy as needed. KPIs will vary organization-by-organization and be dependent on the digital solutions used and the overall strategic objectives, but some examples to track can include: 

An organization-wide digital transformation strategy, tracked with concrete KPIs, is essential for your health system’s continued success. Read more and discover AVIA’s tried-and-true three-step process for creating a strategy in our latest white paper – download now!