• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

  • Opinion
  • Health IT
    • Behavioral Health
    • Care Coordination
    • EMR/EHR
    • Interoperability
    • Patient Engagement
    • Population Health Management
    • Revenue Cycle Management
    • Social Determinants of Health
  • Digital Health
    • AI
    • Blockchain
    • Precision Medicine
    • Telehealth
    • Wearables
  • Startups
  • M&A
  • Value-based Care
    • Accountable Care (ACOs)
    • Medicare Advantage
  • Life Sciences
  • Research

Analysis: How Digital Health Solutions Are Disrupting Care Delivery in Hospitals

by Rainer Herzog, Vice President at Research2Guidance 04/01/2019 Leave a Comment

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
R2G Analysis: How Digital Health Solutions Are Disrupting Care Delivery in Hospitals
Rainer Herzog, Vice President at Research2Guidance

New stakeholders are entering the hospital arena, contesting the hospitals’ traditional role and freedom to provide care to the community. The newcomers’ focus is on digital care delivery processes and on a digitally enabled patient experience. Hospitals will have to start now to prepare their organizations for the coming change. Creating digital partner ecosystems is one prominent way to approach this task.    

Hospital stays can be frightening, stressful and sometimes traumatizing.

As one hospital CIO pointed out recently: “We are throwing patients into our hospital machinery, removing their clothes and deprive them of their dignity”. However, more and more hospital executives increasingly acknowledge that a positive patient experience substantially contributes to promoting good physical, spiritual and mental health, and thus quicker patient recovery.

As hospitals around the world absorb between 30-40% of all healthcare costs, it is also crucial from a health economic point of view, to re-think the way hospital care should be delivered in the future.

An increasing number of digital, patient-centric solutions are already available today to remedy this situation. Some of them have been implemented in hospitals around the world to improve clinical outcomes and quality of care at affordable costs.

A large number of hospital executives are pushing to implement these solutions to redefine care and implement digital care delivery processes, as well as a digitally enabled patient experience.

New players are challenging hospitals’ traditional role and freedom

In addition to the growing number of hospitals that are breaking new ground, new participants are entering the hospital care arena almost on a daily basis, challenging the hospitals’ traditional role as care providers to the community.

On the one hand, these are to an increasing extent non-traditional players such as e.g. Google/Verily or Amazon, but also InsureTechs that are moving into the hospital and provider space with their digital offerings.

In contrast, the digital health and app companies themselves intrude the hospital territory with their patient-focused app offerings.

These new incumbents do not only threaten to take away parts of the traditional patient-relationship, but they will also be in a position to collect direct patient-data with which they are able to influence treatment regimens and thus may curtail the hospitals’ treatment and care autonomy.

So what do hospitals need to do in order to face the challenge?

Hospitals must start and build the foundation for digital or smart hospital structures and processes and invest in their digital transformation so that they can continue to master their own fates.

They will need to manage business model change along with implementing new technologies. This will require delivering a new governance as well as a new organization which is supported by new technology.

In the recently conducted global survey on “Success Drivers of Digital Health” (by R2G), a well-designed digital partner strategy and integration is among the top 3 success factors that enable to create value-added patient services that result in improved patient outcomes. However, with more than 300 thousand health apps available, building such an ecosystem of digital solution partners remains a great challenge for most hospital managers. Selecting the best fitting partners needs a solid screening and selection process, not only taking into account the app performance and safety but also their capability to integrate into existing IT infrastructures and especially into EPRs.

The following digital categories constitute the most relevant ones for hospitals to concentrate on:

– Patient Experience Solutions

– Care Planning & Coordination

– Hospital Navigation

– Remote and In-House Patient Monitoring

– Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement (PROM)

– EPR based systems such as Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Picture Archiving Systems (PACS) or Laboratory Information Systems (LIS)

About Rainer Herzog

Rainer Herzog is the Vice President at Research2Guidance, analyst and strategy consulting company for the digital health industry. Prior to joining Research2Guidance, Herzog served as the Managing Director at HIMSS Europe. Herzog has an excellent track record in leading international organizations including Healthcare Segment Leader Global Marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications and Head of Strategy and Business Development Digital Health at Ericsson, to name a few.

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print

Tagged With: Amazon, digital health, google, himss, HIMSS Europe, Hospital CIO, medical technology, Mental Health, mhealth, PACS, Partners, Patient Experience, Patient Monitoring, Research2Guidance, Siemens, Verily

Tap Native

Get in-depth healthcare technology analysis and commentary delivered straight to your email weekly

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to HIT Consultant

Latest insightful articles delivered straight to your inbox weekly.

Submit a Tip or Pitch

Featured Insights

2025 EMR Software Pricing Guide

2025 EMR Software Pricing Guide

Featured Interview

Kinetik CEO Sufian Chowdhury on Fighting NEMT Fraud & Waste

Most-Read

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Launches "CloseKnit" Virtual-First Primary Care Option

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Launches “CloseKnit” Virtual-First Primary Care Option

Osteoboost Launches First FDA-Cleared Prescription Wearable Nationwide to Combat Low Bone Density

Osteoboost Launches First FDA-Cleared Prescription Wearable Nationwide to Combat Low Bone Density

2019 MedTech Breakthrough Award Category Winners Announced

MedTech Breakthrough Announces 2025 MedTech Breakthrough Award Winners

WeightWatchers Files for Bankruptcy to Eliminate $1.15B in Debt

WeightWatchers Files for Bankruptcy to Eliminate $1.15B in Debt

KLAS: Epic Dominates 2024 EHR Market Share Amid Focus on Vendor Partnership; Oracle Health Sees Losses Despite Tech Advances

KLAS: Epic Dominates 2024 EHR Market Share Amid Focus on Vendor Partnership; Oracle Health Sees Losses Despite Tech Advances

'Cranky Index' Reveals EHR Alert Frustration Peaks Midweek, Highest Among Admin Staff

‘Cranky Index’ Reveals EHR Alert Frustration Peaks Midweek, Highest Among Admin Staff

Madison Dearborn Partners to Acquire Significant Stake in NextGen Healthcare

Madison Dearborn Partners to Acquire Significant Stake in NextGen Healthcare

Wandercraft Begins Clinical Trials for Physical AI-Powered Personal Exoskeleton

Wandercraft Begins Clinical Trials for Physical AI-Powered Personal Exoskeleton

Chipiron Secures $17M to Transform MRI Access with Portable Scanner

Chipiron Secures $17M to Transform MRI Access with Portable Scanner

Abbott to Integrate FreeStyle Libre Glucose Data with Epic EHR

Abbott to Integrate FreeStyle Libre Glucose Data with Epic EHR

Secondary Sidebar

Footer

Company

  • About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Reprints and Permissions
  • Submit An Op-Ed
  • Contact
  • Subscribe

Editorial Coverage

  • Opinion
  • Health IT
    • Care Coordination
    • EMR/EHR
    • Interoperability
    • Population Health Management
    • Revenue Cycle Management
  • Digital Health
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Blockchain Tech
    • Precision Medicine
    • Telehealth
    • Wearables
  • Startups
  • Value-Based Care
    • Accountable Care
    • Medicare Advantage

Connect

Subscribe to HIT Consultant Media

Latest insightful articles delivered straight to your inbox weekly

Copyright © 2025. HIT Consultant Media. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy |