From the earliest industrial revolution, businesses have had to adapt their strategies to survive transformations and disruptions to the status quo – healthcare is no different. The current age has been termed the ‘digital disruption’, which primarily speaks to new technologies that shift the traditional way of doing things. Consider the disruption Uber made in the private taxi industry by employing mobile technology to connect drivers with passengers. Or how Netflix has made the traditional DVD store obsolete through their use of the internet to stream content to viewers.

Closer to home, many believe that medical companies, technological innovations, and government regulations are driving the digital disruption in healthcare. However, in reality, the industry is simply trying to keep up with patient demand. Here are some digital disruptions that patients are currently embracing that are growing in adoption and popularity:

• Cloud adoption

According to Accenture, 95% of American consumers demand online access to health records, driving cloud adoption and making software a core requirement for American medical companies. With patients becoming more aware of their health and the internet as a source of key insights, South African patients are bound to start making the same demands for holistic access of their patient history/health records.

• Remote care

Telemedicine crosses the geographic expanse and connects medical practitioners to patients, even medical practitioners to other medical practitioners, to extend services to underserved areas. Many major telemedicine companies are offering telemedicine apps as a means for patients to connect and communicate with medical practitioners remotely and on-the-go.

• High-tech wearables

Consumers are purchasing high-tech wearables and connected devices by the millions to improve their overall health and well-being.  Apple, Google and Samsung have all recently introduced mobile platforms to aggregate user data from other apps and wearables into a comprehensive platform.

Healthbridge Embracing Digital Disruption

In-line with the view that digital disruption presents opportunities, over the last 18 months we have re-invested heavily into our new platform myMPS. This digital platform is abreast of the latest cloud-computing technologies and will allow us to deliver faster and smarter solutions. Our base of 2000 (and growing) clients already in the cloud, will have more levers at their disposal to support their business approaches.

By placing our innovative platform in the cloud, we can connect you not only to our own exciting technologies, but also to new partners for more value, at far greater speeds. This encourages industry-wide interconnectivity, meaning everyone can thrive together. For instance, look out for an immanent partnership with Discovery HealthID which will allow access to their application directly within the myMPS platform. We are exploring other partnerships with Snap Scan payments, integrations into medicolegal services to allow real time transactions and scanning of patient documents to the cloud to name a few.

Conclusion

The healthcare industry is seeing many digital disruptions and if trend remains, these disruptions will only become greater. Here are some tips on how you can ensure your practice is prepared for the effects of digital disruption:

• Recognise that digital disruption is a real possibility for your practice.
• Understand what your patients actually want—and what is purely a fad.
• Recognise that you don’t have to solve the problem on your own.
• Most importantly – adopt a patient-centric lens on all your activity.