What Will it Take to Move Healthcare to Full Digital Enablement?

Margo Schneider, senior director of digital strategy, UW Medicine

“I really hope that in the next 10 years the term ‘digital health’ is retired because all healthcare will be digitally enabled,” says Margo Schneider, senior director of digital strategy at UW Medicine.

Schneider, along with Tara Nooteboom, director of strategic and digital growth at Rush System for Health, and Prem Batchu-Green, customer experience designer for iRhythm Technologies, recently weighed in on the evolution of healthcare.

They discussed where things stand today, and what it will take to move the industry to a digitally enabled future state. Dalal Haldeman, Ph.D., CEO of Haldeman Marketing, moderated the discussion.

Digital health is still very much with us today, as a phrase and in practice. It is where access and care are converging. “When I think about the digital health solutions, there are two different elements,” says Batchu-Green. “There’s the non-clinical solutions — let’s say the digital front door, improving patient access, improving patient engagement. And then there’s the second side of it, which is digital health solutions that support clinical processes.”

Creating simple, straightforward, and user-friendly digital experiences has been an elusive goal for digital health pioneers and practitioners. “Healthcare is very complex behind the scenes, but how can we remove that complexity out of the patient experience?” asks Schneider.

One way to achieve a unified experience is to bring digital experts in from the start. “Digital shouldn’t be an afterthought,” Schneider says. “It should be part of the planning from the beginning, so that the organization doesn’t find itself a year into some kind of strategic initiative and only then bringing in people who could advise on the digital piece.”

Learn more: Sustaining and Accelerating Digital Health Innovation in a Post-COVID World

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President