Healthcare Execs Say Cloud Computing, Other Tech Speeding Innovation
Almost all the healthcare executives surveyed by Accenture said that the pace of innovation in their organization has accelerated over the past three years due to emerging technologies, such as cloud computing, data analytics, social media, and mobility.
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- Almost all the healthcare executives surveyed by Accenture said that the pace of innovation in their organization has accelerated over the past three years due to emerging technologies, such cloud computing, data analytics, social media, and mobility.
A full 80 percent of respondents agreed that these technologies have moved beyond adoption silos to make up the technology core for most organizations.
In addition, two-thirds of respondents predicted that the combination of distributed ledger technology, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and quantum computing (DARQ) will have a “transformational” impact on their organization over the next three years.
“DARQ technologies are poised to become the foundation for next-generation products and services. Healthcare leaders in the DARQ-driven future will be prepared to combine and exploit those competencies as the technologies reach enterprise-level maturity,” the report observed.
Eighty-nine percent of healthcare execs are currently experimenting with one or more DARQ technologies.
“All four DARQ technologies are, or will be, powerful on their own. But as they advance, they will push each other forward further. Already, early pairings reveal game-changing combinatorial effects for healthcare,” the report related.
Around 87 percent of respondents believe that digital demographics give their organization a new way to identify market opportunities. A similar percentage believe that consumer digital demographics are becoming a more powerful way to understand their customers compared to traditional demographics.
“Healthcare has an ongoing data stream from medical records, technology devices, claims, past preferences for services, biology and more. This data is the cornerstone of delivering personalized healthcare on a person’s own terms,” the report noted.
Three-quarters of healthcare execs said that their employees are more digitally mature than their organization, resulting in a workforce “waiting” for the organization to catch up. And two-thirds of execs believe that within the next three years, every employee will have access to a team of bots to do their work.
Seventy-nine percent of healthcare execs believe that the speed at which members of the workforce move between roles and organizations has increased the need for retraining.
“Investing in the healthcare workforce through learning and reskilling strategies will prepare employees for changing roles,” Accenture observed.
Healthcare Will Need to Rethink Its Security Model
Three-quarters of healthcare execs expressed frustration that protecting their organization in an ecosystem depends on security practices they often have no control over.
“Healthcare businesses must, in response [to cyberthreats], evolve their approach and stand up a stronger security posture that factors in ecosystem partners. New models and policies must ensure that the partners and third parties joining the ecosystem adhere to the same standard of security — or higher — that they set for themselves,” the report commented.
Most healthcare execs believe that their organization must rethink their security approach to focus on defending their ecosystem, and 87 percent believe that security in their organization is evolving from a siloed function to a critical computing of their strategy, reputation, and relationships.
“As vulnerabilities increase, so does the burden on already overworked security professionals. Healthcare organizations can stem potential mistakes and oversights by embracing DevSecOps — integrating security teams into DevOps teams to allow for continuous improvements to security,” Accenture advised.
Eighty-seven percent of healthcare execs agree that the integration of customization and real-time delivery is the next big wave of competitive advantage in healthcare, and 82 percent agree that 5G will revolutionize their industry by offering new ways to provide products and services.
“When healthcare organizations gain the ability to create one-to-one relationships with individual healthcare consumers, they become each individual person’s ongoing, trusted healthcare partner. Organizations will achieve this by understanding the technology people use and how they use it, creating the insights needed to integrate seamlessly into the person’s life,” the report observed.
