Chances and challenges in the process of digitally transforming healthcare

POLAVIS in conversation with Kay Nag, co-founder of BothOfUs on the DMEA 2019 in Berlin

According to Mr. Nag the centralization of data and its life saving potentials are one of the main reasons going forward in digitally transforming healthcare. Startups and companies are very enthusiastic about their new technology. Hospitals, doctors and nurses, however, are not very well adapted to these new systems. Then, there are patients that aren’t technically competent enough to understand all these new tools. So, whatever platform is built the focus on the people using them should be central. In order to raise acceptance there should be proper training and communication of the benefits. There should be an answer on how these solutions can save time, energy, and costs.

What do you think are the biggest potentials of digitization in healthcare?

One of the main advantages could be the centralization of data, because that’s the major reason why everyone is trying to do this. So the potential through that is early diagnosis and avoiding serious risk from happening and then more dangerous things. Even quite only using modern technologies like machine learning or artificial intelligence and so on. That is lifesaving and that could be very, very big potential if I need to point out one.

Absolutely and what do you think are the biggest obstacles in implementing new digital solutions in healthcare?

So it’s on both sides. The start-ups and companies which build these digitalization tools are very much enthusiastic about them. But the major factor to consider is the hospitals, especially doctors and nurses are not very well adapted to technology. That is one part and then the second part are patients. Not all the patients are technically confident enough to understand all these tools as well. So, these two are major, major things to concentrate on and the platform whatever is going to be built needs to be built whith that core thinking in mind, so it makes life easy for both of them. But those are the areas to concentrate on.

Yes, and then there’s the term change management, implementing those technologies. What do you think are good ways of making people working in healthcare enthusiastic about new healthcare systems and making them work along together?

It’s training. Training doctors and nurses and health care providers is one of the very, very important things. It’s explaining what will be the benefit for them in this, not only looking on the technology side of it. At the end of the day they are the ones who are going to use these tools regularly. So points like how will they save their time could be one of the key points in change management for us. And the second thing could be how much in terms of energy and money, so time, energy, money are the factors which need to be prioritised in change management to be brought up. But it’s a process so they need to be very well trained especially by the providers.

Thank you a lot for your answers and your Time.