The digital hospital of the future

The future of health care delivery may look quite different than today’s hospitals. Rapidly evolving technologies and demographic and economic changes are expected to alter hospitals worldwide. A growing number of inpatient health care services are already being pushed to homes and outpatient ambulatory facilities.

With aging infrastructure in some countries and increased demand for more beds, hospital executives and governments should consider rethinking optimizing inpatient and outpatient settings and integrating digital technologies into traditional hospital services to create a health system without walls.

To learn what this future of health care delivery may look like, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions conducted a crowdsourcing simulation with 33 experts from across the globe. Their charge was to develop specific use cases for designing digital hospitals globally in 10 years.

The crowdsourcing simulation developed the following use cases:

1. Redefined care delivery. Acute-care hospitals will be distinguished by new features such as centralized digital decision centers, continuous clinical monitoring, targeted treatments, and the use of smaller, portable devices.
2. A digital patient experienceDigital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can help enable on-demand interaction and seamless processes to improve the patient experience.
3. Enhanced talent developmentRobotic process automation (RPA) and AI can allow caregivers to spend more time providing care and less time documenting it.
4. Operational efficiencies through technologyDigital supply chains, automation, robotics, and next-generation interoperability can drive operations management and back-office efficiencies.
5. Healing and well-being designsThe well-being of patients and staff members—emphasizing the importance of the environment and experience in healing—will likely be important in future hospital designs.

Laying The Foundation For The Digital Hospital Of The Future.

Building the digital hospital of the future will require investments in people, technology, processes, and premises. A well-crafted strategy will lay the foundation for the digital hospital of the future.

These core elements of an enterprise digital strategy can help you get started as you begin to push your hospital into the future:

1. Create a culture for digital transformation..Senior management must understand the importance of a digital future and drives support for its implementation at all organizational levels.
2. Consider technology that communicates.

Digital implementation is complex. Connecting disparate applications, devices, and technologies—all highly interdependent—and ensuring they talk to each other can be critical to a successful digital implementation.

1. Play the long game.Since digital technologies are ever-evolving, flexibility and scalability during implementation can be critical. The planning team should confirm that the project scope includes adding, modifying, or replacing technology at lower costs.
2. Focus on dataWhile data interoperability, scalability, productivity, and flexibility requirements are essential, they should be built upon a solid foundation for capturing, storing, securing, and analyzing data.
3. Prepare for Talent 2.0.As hospitals invest in exponential technologies, they should provide employees ample opportunities to develop complementary digital strategies.
4. Maintain cybersecurity.

With the proliferation of digital technologies, cyber breaches could be a significant threat to hospitals in the future. Executives should understand that cybersecurity is the other half of digital implementation and allocate resources appropriately.