Health Organizations Failing At Digital Health Innovation

Few healthcare providers are prepared to harvest benefits from digital health innovations, a new study suggests. The study, by innovation consultancy Enspektos LLC, concludes that digital health innovation efforts are fairly immature among healthcare organizations, despite the enormous wave of interest in these technologies.

While this should come as no surprise to those of us working in the industry, it’s a little depressing for those of us — including myself — who passionately believe that digital health tools have the potential to transform the delivery of care. But it also reminds providers to invest more time and effort in digital health efforts, at least if they want to get anything done!

The study, which was sponsored by healthcare IT vendor Validic, chose 150 survey participants working at health organizations (hospitals, pharmaceutical firms, payers) or their partners (technology firms, startups and the like) and asked them to rate digital health innovation in the healthcare industry.

The results of this study suggest that despite their high level of interest, many healthcare organizations don’t have the expertise or resources needed to take full advantage of digital health innovations. This tracks well with my own experience, which suggest that digital health efforts by hospitals and clinics are slapdash at best, rolling out apps and doling out devices without thinking strategically about the results they hope to accomplish. (For more data on digital health app failures see this story.)

According to Enspektos, only 5% of health organizations could demonstrate that they were operating at the highest level of proficiency and expertise in digital health innovation. The majority of health organizations worldwide are experimenting with and piloting digital health tools, researchers concluded.

Apparently, digital health is moving slowly even with relatively mature technologies such as mobile platforms. One might think that mobile deployments wouldn’t baffle IT departments, but apparently, many are behind the curve. In fact, health organizations typically don’t have enough technical expertise or large enough budget to scale their digital health efforts effectively, Enspektos researchers found.

Of course, as a digital health technology vendor, Validic is one of many hoping to be the solution to these problems. (It offers a cloud-based technology connecting patient-recorded data from digital health apps, devices and wearables to healthcare organizations.) I’m not familiar with Validic’s products, but their presence in this market does raise a few interesting issues.

Assuming that its measures of digital health maturity are on target, it would seem that health organizations do need help integrating these technologies. The question is whether a vendor such as Validic can be dropped into the technical matrix of a healthcare organization and bring its digital health program to life.

My guess is that no matter how sophisticated an integration platform they deploy, healthcare organizations still have a tremendous amount of work to do in thinking about what they actually want to accomplish. Most of the digital health products I’ve seen from providers, in particular, seem to be solutions in search of a problem, such as apps that have no bearing on the patient’s actual lifestyle and needs.

On the other hand, given how fluid digital health technology is at this point, perhaps vendors will be creating workflow and development models that healthcare organizations can adapt. It remains to be seen who will drive long-term change. Honestly, I’m betting on the vendors, but I hope more healthcare players step up, as I’d like to see them own this thing.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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