Bonisiwe Tshabalala
Africa faces the dual challenge of poor healthcare systems
and a high burden of disease, especially among poorer communities. According to
a McKinsey report, the continent bears nearly twice the disease burden of the
rest of the world. Ninety-four percent of all malaria deaths occur in Africa,
and tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS is widespread.
Additional pressures from disease outbreaks, such as the
Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014, often lead to further disruptions to
healthcare provision, leaving the most vulnerable without the medical
assistance they need. In fact, fewer than half of African citizens have access
to the healthcare they need, and when health services are available, they are
often of poor quality.
And following the devastating impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on health systems across the continent, time has arguably arrived to
radically rethink the delivery of health services to African citizens.
Digitalisation unlocking opportunities for improved care
One of the most transformative developments in healthcare in
recent times is the growing adoption of data and analytics tools to drive
improvements across the healthcare value chain.
Demand for targeted analysis of patient data is expected to
expand over the coming years as patients increasingly seek transparent access
to their healthcare data. In addition, healthcare providers will gather data on
patient experiences to continuously improve the delivery of care and other
patient-related processes.
For providers, the aim should be to deliver quality
accessible healthcare services to anyone regardless of their location or social
conditions. Such care should extend beyond patient discharge, with providers
using mobile devices and applications to enhance the patient experience and
ensure the highest levels of care throughout the healthcare journey.
The rapid digitalisation of the healthcare industry could
see value-based care – which improves patient outcomes while driving down costs
– dominate the sector by as early as 2025.
Five priority areas & tech’s role
However, to achieve value-based care providers will need to
build intelligent enterprise capabilities that enable end-to-end, data-driven
healthcare processes focused on enhancing patient outcomes. And doing so will
depend on how well providers can leverage technology across five priority
areas, namely:
Priority 1 – Operating smartly and efficiently
Healthcare providers are under constant pressure over costs
and resource constraints. By removing unnecessary costs, reducing waste and
freeing up resources for innovation, providers can deliver better care to
patients.
In the coming years, providers will leverage IoT and machine
learning for greater automation, with embedded analytics allowing for more
agile prediction and simulation capabilities. The use of standardisation using
global best practices may also reduce variations in clinical care.
The improved use of analytics and automation can increase
accuracy between front-end and back-end processes, reduce revenue leakage by
limiting insurance claim denials, and streamline insurance claims to enable
faster reimbursement.
Priority 2 – Subscribing to patient outcomes
One of the biggest challenges facing healthcare providers is
how to provide services that deliver optimised outcomes for each individual
patient. In the near future, patients will be able to see what value each
treatment option has based on key performance indicators and assessments of
other patients facing similar circumstances.
Self-management options may allow patients to take more
informed decisions over their treatment, based on accurate data about other
individual patients and their specific context.
This will improve the patient experience and support
compliance by ensuring patients know what procedures to follow and
documentation to bring to a visit. Reimbursement delays can also be reduced
through more accurate data submitted by the patient.
Priority 3 – Enabling data-driven decisions
The shift from mainly experience-based healthcare to
delivering care based on real-world evidence will be a top priority for
healthcare providers over the coming years. Big data generated by electronic
medical records ,apps, wearables, mobile devices, sensors and clinical
innovation will create vast amounts of information.
Over the coming years, providers will increasingly gain the
ability to monitor patients, collect health information from structured and
unstructured sources, and use data analysis to understand and even predict
health conditions in real time. Applying AI, analytics and machine learning can
further unlock valuable data points that can enable insight-driven healthcare
delivery.
This will improve the quality of patient care through
real-time access to a broad range of medical, lifestyle and personal experience
data, while also reducing overall IT spend by enabling data visualisation
across the entire healthcare organisations using a single platform.
Priority 4 – Empowering healthcare workers
The immense pressure under which healthcare professionals
work makes it critical that providers find ways to restructure and empower
their workforce to allow them to work at their best. The key is to avoid complexity,
which drives up costs and slows down progress.
Digital tools can enable healthcare workers to reduce
paperwork and free time up to focus on patient care. Mobile devices can improve
the speed of communication to enable just-in-time delivery of critical
information and results, driving greater flexibility in their work environment.
By adopting a single platform for talent management,
learning management and data insights, healthcare organisations can drive
improvements across their human capital management functions, from planning,
onboarding and recruitment to payroll, expense management and ongoing training
and development.
Priority 5 – Improving the patient experience
Healthcare delivery is shifting as patients move away from
being passive recipients of health services to active, empowered consumers.
Delivering a positive and seamless patient experience across digital and
physical interactions will provide a key point of differentiation for modern
healthcare providers.
Technology will play a central role, specifically
technologies that have been designed with an understanding of patients as the
main users of the solutions. This will improve patient-provider interactions
and drive greater convenience for patients across their healthcare experience.
This will increase patient satisfaction by ensuring patients are involved in the decision-making process and more aware of the treatment and resulting outcomes. By giving patients ownership over different parts of the treatment journey, providers will also improve care efficiency and improve patient outcomes.
by Bonisiwe Tshabalala, Senior Industry & Value Advisor at SAP Africa