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The traditional health care model has reached a point. Continued patient increases, staff shortages, and unstable financial conditions have exacerbated chronic inefficiencies in the US health care system. Disruption from outside parties is important now.
Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical is the latest step in leveraging technology’s big strengths in critical areas that the traditional healthcare model lacks — accessibility, efficiency and innovation. Uncompetitive traditional forces and the pandemic have created a great deal of momentum, emphasizing the important role that consumer-facing technologies can play in providing high-quality, accessible, and affordable care. Healthcare consumers now expect flexibility and choice in how they receive care, and with the $250 billion U.S. healthcare transition to virtual or virtually virtual care post-Covid, big technology can leverage the already established access and build on this success to expand access to healthcare. and meet consumer needs.
However, it’s also important to recognize that the traditional health care model has strengths that big technology lacks. The way forward is not a matter of “or” but “and,” which requires collaboration between traditional and disruptive forces.
Using traditional strengths
Despite the shocking headlines surrounding Amazon and other major outsiders moving into healthcare, incumbents have an undeniable advantage over new entrants. At the highest level, people know and trust, and health systems have the resources, breadth of care, access to data, and responsibility to be their community’s preferred care partner.
Health systems have a unique advantage in engagement because of their personal relationships with patients. Looking ahead, however, modern engagement concepts will include the streamlining of traditional patient experiences, and will rapidly shift to engaging patients across care units, further developing digital patient profiles, and providing personalized experiences to support whole-person health.
While a high volume of care, including many procedures and many specialized services, has always been technology-enabled, highly trained providers are key to health systems as they require some level of human involvement. This human element involves a certain level of efficiency from both a time and financial perspective. Tech giants like Amazon are encouraged by their shareholders not to include ineffective human elements, but rather to remove these aspects from their business models.
To position the healthcare system for long-term success, traditional healthcare providers must harness new disruptive forces to create tangible, discoverable, accessible and personalized experiences for patients who now expect a new consumer-centric model of care. So, what happens when all the efficiencies are related to new innovations, disruptions come to market, but a key part of quality care still requires human involvement?
Learning from difficult forces
The answer is right in the middle. Digitally-driven, on-demand conveniences that most consumers in other industries have been waiting for for more than a decade have become a practical reality in healthcare over the past two-plus years. Health systems must adapt to the changing expectations of consumers and medical professionals. Patients have become healthcare consumers and expect a digital experience on par with an e-commerce transaction. If any consumable can be delivered to your door at the click of a button, why shouldn’t it be easy to find a healthcare provider? The race to capture and retain patients in network by incorporating digitally-driven efficiencies is underway, and traditional healthcare entities cannot achieve this on their own.
Big Tech has great potential to add value to healthcare, especially when it comes to consumer access. These companies have mastered the ability to increase accessibility and provide a personalized consumer experience. To put this in perspective, nearly 44% of Americans have an active Amazon Prime membership, while the largest US health system, HCA Healthcare, serves only 1% of Americans. Google estimates that it receives more than one billion health-related searches every day, which is 7% of the total number of daily searches. Additionally, 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store. While Walmart is a traditional player in retail, they are also moving into the consumer technology arena, which has seen a major shift that is shaking up the primary care space.
Improving the system is based on the unity of strengths
Traditional health systems are uniquely positioned to make the changes patients need. These systems provide the majority of the nation’s health care services, intimately understand the complexities of care delivery, and have trusted brands. Along with the complexity of the healthcare industry and the data and privacy issues involved, understanding this landscape and scale of care is critical to driving sustainable innovation. After all, health systems are the background experts, and as such, it’s their job to not see disruptions and disruptive changes from within as signs of slowing down the pace of the pandemic.
Health systems need to disrupt their current business models quickly – but do so intentionally and in partnership with big tech companies like Amazon who are driving the system forward. Ultimately, all large and small, public and private, will have a place in this new realm, but it must be deliberate to strike the right balance. This leads to a super system that works for everyone.
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