Digital Transformation in Healthcare: A Human-Centred Approach (26.11.2024 Presentation)

# Digital Transformation in Healthcare: A human-centered approach Dr. Julia Amann, Project lead Strategy & Innovation, Careum Lecture Series Digital Society: Digital Transformation in Society & Culture 26.11.2024, University of Fribourg ## Digital Transformation in Healthcare - **Digital Transfor...

# Digital Transformation in Healthcare: A human-centered approach Dr. Julia Amann, Project lead Strategy & Innovation, Careum Lecture Series Digital Society: Digital Transformation in Society & Culture 26.11.2024, University of Fribourg ## Digital Transformation in Healthcare - **Digital Transformation:** redefine operation & value delivery - Artificial intelligence (AI) for predictive analytics and telemedicine for remote patient monitoring, decision-making - Profound impact on patient and provider roles, tasks, and experiences - **Digitization:** converting analog information into digital format. - Process of scanning paper-based medical records and converting into electronic files. - Easier to store, access, share. - **Digitalization:** digitally enhancing existing processes. - Implementing an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system using digital technology to manage, organize, and analyze patient data. - Impact on workflows and communication. ## Taking medical records as an example - **Digitization**: Converting analog information into digital format. - **Digitalization:** Digitally enhancing existing processes. - **Digital Transformation:** Redefine operation & value delivery. ## Healthcare faces several challenges - **Communication and documentation inefficiencies.** - **Demographic and epidemiological transition.** - **Skill shortage.** - **Healthcare disparities.** - **Rising costs.** ## The potential of digital transformation - **Personalized medicine and strengthening prevention, optimizing treatment & rehabilitation**. - **Monitoring:** making use of vast amounts of healthcare data. - **Efficiency & quality gains:** automatization, workflow/process optimization. - **Patient & public empowerment:** strengthening health literacy & self-management >> reducing demand. - **Facilitating collaboration and decision-making within and across institutions.** - **Accessibility & attractiveness of healthcare education & (new) professions.** ## Digital tools and technologies alone are not the solution. ## What makes digital transformation in healthcare so challenging? - **Risk Aversion** due to high-risk environment (patient safety, data privacy & security, stability). - **Resistance to change** due to culture, professional norms, lack of time/skills, and fear. - **Significant investments** to replace current or adopt new systems (without guaranteed success). - **Regulatory Complexity** slows down implementation (validation & certification). - **Pace of technological progress** compared to regulation & education. - **Heterogeneity of stakeholders** characterized by diverse objectives, rationales, and roles . - **Silo-thinking hindering collaboration**. ## An example: Alienated use of clinical information systems - **Primarily used for digital documentation.** - **Potential for process optimization, capacity and resource management not exploited.** - **"Missing big picture".** - **Processes lacking practical relevance to clinical workflows, switching back and forth between digital and analogue**. - Increasing workload. - Lowering provider satisfaction. - New sources of error: patient safety. **Should new tools be adapted to align with established practices and processes or vice versa?** ## How does digital transformation happen? - **Problem** - an image of two people on either side of the word "problem". One person is a woman with her hand on another's hand, the other person is looking up with a questioning look on their face. - **Idea** - an image of a woman with her hand on her chin looking up at the sky, looking at a lightbulb moment. ## Being creative is fun - **We could...** - a speech bubble at the bottom left of the image, and someone's hand is holding a pen and reaching towards the bubble - **How about we...** - a speech bubble at the bottom left of the image that is pointing towards a wheelchair on the street - **Wouldn't it be great if...** a speech bubble at the top right of the image - **Let's...** a speech bubble at the bottom right of the image ## Finding solutions together - **"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (World Health Organisation, 1948).** - **Comprehensive view:** Bio-psycho-social model of health. - **Engaging users & beneficiaries & anyone affected.** - **Understanding needs, challenges & priorities first-hand.** - **Diversity of perspectives through interprofessionalism and PPI (patient and public involvement).** - **Various professions and disciplines are involved: role of ICT professionals.** - **Strengthening collaboration & mutual understanding.** ## Challenges in interprofessional communication and collaboration - **Starting to recognize potential but...** - Education & socialization. - We often know very little about each other. - Different languages. - Different perspectives and approaches. - Conflicting priorities - Incompatible schedules - This sentence is illustrated with an image an elephant in the middle of six people all labeling it differently. - Another image depicts five different people's views of a tree. One person says it's a fan, another says a spear, another a snake, another a tree, and another a wall. - Another image depicts five different people's views of a tree. One person says the customer explained it as a tree, another says the project leader understood it as a tree, another says the programmer wrote it as a tree, another says the analyst designed it as a tree, and another says the business consultant described it as a tree. ## Human-centered design & design thinking - **Various methods, tools, approaches & definitions.** - **People and their needs are at the center.** - The double-diamond design process is illustrated. ## Design thinking principles - **Mindset combining creativity, empathy and practical action to develop innovative solutions**. - **C** - Collaborative: teamwork, bringing together diverse perspectives. - **R** - Reflective: iterative process requiring ongoing reflection. - **E** - Empathetic: focused on understanding and empathizing with users' needs and experiences. - **A** - Adaptive: staying flexible and responsive to new information. - **T** - Test-driven: Regular testing of prototypes and ideas to inform development. - **E** - Experimental: Encouraging experimentation and creativity, failure as a learning opportunity. ## **Double Diamond** An image is shown, depicting two diamonds, the first half starting with **"Problem"** and the second starting with **"Solution"** . - **Discover** - the first diamond starts with **"Diverge"**. The inside is showing the word problem, with a bunch of other problems, all diverging in different directions. - **Define** - the first diamond ends with **"Converge"**. It then goes to the second diamond, starts with **"Diverge"** and shows the definition of the problem in the middle, a few arrows moving in different directions (diverging), - **Develop** - the second diamond ends with **"Converge".** The middle is "Solution, with the arrows coming from the first diamond converging. - **Deliver** - the process ends with **"Solution"**. It depicts a few dots converging into one. ## **Examples & Lessons learned** An image of a magnifying glass is shown, over a yellow background., with the caption of "Examples & Lessons learned." ## **Research example: Co-designing in the field of mobile health** - **Preparatory phase:** - Developing the preliminary content model. - Review and synthesis of clinical guidelines. - Consensus meaning. - **Phase 1:** - Translating the content model into system requirements. - Ideation workshop. - Design sprints. - **Phase 2:** - Assessing perceived usability . - Pilot-usability test. - Usability test. - **Phase 3:** - Assessing perceived utility and acceptance. - Semistructured interviews with people with SCI. - Focus groups with health care professionals. ## Practice example: Fostering innovation capacity and interprofessional collaboration at Careum - **Innovation Bites:** - Open to all employees. - New methods and approaches. - Experiment & network. - Different perspectives. - Theory & practice-oriented. - **Careum Summer School** - Interprofessional student groups. - Mentors. - Patients and informal caregivers. - Design thinking. ## Lessons learned so far - **Concentrate on understanding the problem.** - **Contradicting evidence is not uncommon.** - **Conundrums can be tricky to solve.** - **Compromises are necessary, but need to be well communicated.** - **Creativity-fostering activities are essential.** - **Continuously challenge your own assumptions.** - **Consider implementation.** - **Communication is key: from idea to marketing.** ## Some concluding thoughts - **Digital transformation is not a goal in and of itself: start from the problem, not the solution.** - **Collaboration and community foster (digital) health innovation.** - **The role of education in promoting interprofessional collaboration and patient involvement.** - **Human-centered design principles and design thinking tools provide guidance & support.** - **People, not technologies are the driving force of (digital) health innovation.**