Research from Deloitte’s Centre for Health Solutions, in a survey of more thank 1,500 clinical staff across the UK has found one in three (35%) healthcare professionals believe it will take at least 10 years before their organisation is paperless and fully digital.
The finding cite funding, leadership and interoperability as the three key challenges.
Funding is listed as the main obstacle for digital uptake, with 56% of healthcare professionals saying that the cost of the technology is holding back their organisation.
One in 10 believe that it is finding the right technologies (11%) and the complexity of the technology (10%) which is hampering uptake.
The findings come from Deloitte’s Shaping the future of digital healthcare report.
Sara Siegel, partner and head of healthcare at Deloitte, said “Digital healthcare will make it easier for people to access services more quickly, while providing staff greater visibility of the information they need to treat patients efficiently and effectively. This will help to bridge the gap between the challenge of increasing demand for healthcare and the growing level of staff shortages.”
“In 2019, digital transformation lags well behind where it needs to be if healthcare is to remain sustainable and affordable. Accelerating digital transformation will require a radical shift in the culture and mind-set of healthcare leaders. The variable state of IT infrastructure and difference in rates of adoption of technologies requires more sustained management and investment to accelerate and improve the uptake of technologies.”
Deloitte’s research highlights the steps needed to accelerate digital transformation, including enhancing basic infrastructure requirements, improving data storage and access to health data, establishing robust data governance arrangements and improving the digital literacy of staff and patients.
Bill Hall, partner at Deloitte, adds “Within the next five years, most patients’ first contact with healthcare is likely to be digital. A number of innovative technologies are already providing solutions across clinical environments, and these have the potential to be disruptive if adopted at scale. Digital and virtual reality therapies could provide an effective, alternative treatment to drug therapies or to face-to-face coaching in areas such as mental health. Our complete health history could exist in one place and be accessed by a computer or phone as easily as how most people currently access their bank account details today. Healthcare staff are motivated and willing to use new technologies to work differently. However, many currently lack the leadership, funding, capacity and capability to embrace digital transformation at scale.”
