{"id":6263,"date":"2023-04-20T13:41:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T20:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=6263"},"modified":"2023-04-20T13:41:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T20:41:02","slug":"digital-transformation-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/in\/news\/stories\/digital-transformation-healthcare\/","title":{"rendered":"How Is Digital Transformation for Healthcare Evolving in 2023?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article has been updated with new research since its original publication in January of 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In healthcare and life sciences, disruption is always near. Whether swift change arrives through new regulations, soaring consumer expectations<\/a>, or a global pandemic, operational and consumer goals require agility. But how are healthcare and life sciences becoming nimbler in 2023, in the face of evolving business models and tightening budget constraints? The answer is digital transformation. While 99% of organizations in the sector consider this approach worth exploring, just 12% are fully digital, according to new Salesforce research<\/a>. That means this year is ripe for innovation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Digital Transformation for Healthcare?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Digital transformation is the process by which healthcare and life sciences organizations overhaul the enterprise, integrating disparate data, connecting decision makers to real-time insights, and automating burdensome administrative tasks. It\u2019s an undertaking that shifts a company from the on-premises, manual, siloed past to the cloud-based, automated, connected future. As healthcare begins to navigate a difficult year, digital transformation promises to create efficiencies while reducing costs. Across the industry, organizations say that goal is their top priority for the next two years, according to Salesforce research. Digital transformation offers the agility that organizations need if they are to do more with less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research from Salesforce<\/a> shows that healthcare and life sciences companies expect, above all, digital transformation to result in improved organization-wide data management<\/a>, lowered operational costs, and automated workflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The surge of artificial intelligence and sheer volume of data in recent years are pushing the healthcare industry to the brink, where digital transformation is a necessity not a nice-to-have. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Technology is poised to reduce administrative costs, which make up about one-quarter<\/a> of the nearly $4 trillion spent on healthcare annually in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going digital is particularly appealing amid a wave of consumerization in which nearly three-quarters of industry executives prioritize improving consumer trust and satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macroeconomic turbulence is exacerbating recent challenges, such as high costs and increasingly distributed workforces<\/a>. Globally, Salesforce research shows, 57% of healthcare and life sciences organizations work under a hybrid model, a figure slated to grow to 63% within two years. Integrating electronic health data is a longstanding industry goal, and as more care and operations occur outside traditional settings, interoperability becomes even more challenging \u2014 and even more important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By consolidating and democratizing data, digital transformation delivers the flexibility that healthcare and life sciences need to address incessant pain points and respond to new needs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Picture this: Healthcare professionals use innovative software to access unified, real-time clinical data and then extract insights with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. That gives care teams a holistic snapshot<\/a> of patients, allowing informed care decisions in the clinic and through virtual care. Automation then streamlines information exchange between payers and providers. It\u2019s all possible today. Research shows<\/a> that healthcare and life sciences professionals say personalizing consumer experiences is the most important outcome of AI, followed by leveraging real-time data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generative AI<\/a> opens up even more opportunities for how the healthcare industry can evolve digitally. Although the technology entered the mainstream consciousness just recently, 15% of healthcare employees<\/a> say they\u2019ve already experimented with generative AI at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe benefits of digital transformation in healthcare can be truly lifesaving, both for organizations and the consumers they serve,\u201d said Amit Khanna, SVP & GM, Healthcare and Life Sciences at Salesforce. \u201cAs budgets shrink and costs skyrocket, the healthcare and life sciences industries have no choice but to invest in technology that enables them to do more with less.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n