T he COVID-19 health crisis has disrupted the healthcare industry forever and accelerated many of the future strategies that were perceived to take decades to be implemented. Hospitals leveraged analytics and AI to gather insights, extended hospitals beyond walls, integrated telemedicine and virtual care solutions and more. The use of telehealth platforms for virtual visits and consumers’ changing preferences illustrate how hospitals might operate in the future.

In the face of COVID-19, healthcare experts were interviewed on what the hospital scenario would be like post the pandemic phase and in the years to come. These were the three key predictions made.

1. Disruptive Business Models Will Transform Hospitals

From the experts’ perspective, hospitals will choose a specific path and evolve into one of the following:

• Specialty care operators: By 2040, the healthcare landscape will have lesser number of hospital beds with most of the hospitals transforming into specialty care providers offering critical care procedures to specific populations. These hospitals will primarily focus on complex specialties like trauma or critical care, epidemic, etc.
• Health hubs: The hospital environments would turn into health hubs that transform consumer experiences by providing simple, convenient and affordable healthcare services. For instance: ambulatory, home services
• Hospital at home or virtual hospital: Care could be provided beyond the hospital walls including virtual hospitals or Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) solutions

2. Ubiquitous Data and Technology will Disrupt Care Delivery Models

Experts predict that hospitals will deliver hyper-personalized and high-touch experiences—powered by data and health analytics, streamlined operations and outcome-driven care delivery models. They have also concluded that AI and Machine Learning (ML) are the exponential technologies that will revolutionize healthcare in the forthcoming years.

Emerging technologies could disrupt the healthcare ecosystem—however, most of the prevailing systems would evolve and mature in the future—reshaping the healthcare scenario for the greater good. Cognitive technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Machine Learning will be the predominant technologies redefining patient experiences and care delivery. Research reveals that interoperability is a game-changer that will enhance the consumer experience by a whopping 38%, reduce the cost of care by 44% and patient management and outcomes by 36%.

3. Digitally Enabled Hospitality and Smart Spaces will be Crucial

Experts believe that integrating digital technologies and smart spaces plays a crucial role in helping hospitals deliver the personalized experience and convenience that they expect. Smart spaces need to be included as a significant part of hospital design to provide flexible and scalable solutions based on surging demands.

The hospital ecosystem is set for major transformation not only in the physical space, but also in delivering the combined benefits of integrating physical with virtual offerings. Digital and virtual health will evolve to offer connected, accessible and continuous care—and healthcare will be provided anytime, anywhere, immaterial of the physical presence of the patient, doctor or the hospital walls. Mobile platforms and solutions will support and enable care delivery at home. In essence, the future of healthcare will bring technology to patients than bringing patients to the technology.

Designing the Hospital of the Future Today

Healthcare organizations need to evaluate and assess which parts of the pandemic response strategies should extend in the aftermath of COVID-19. Hospitals need to consider:

• Which are the areas to invest in new and cutting-edge technologies?
• How telehealth and remote patient monitoring can be strengthened?
• How to restructure workforce, collaboration models and skill enhancements?
• How to optimize and strategize collaboration needed for remote and virtual healthcare?
• What kinds of alliances and partnerships are required to strengthen organizational goals?

If anything, the catastrophic global health crisis has taught us that transformation can happen sooner and the hospital of the future may be nearer than we think.

To disrupt—or to be disrupted is a choice that hospitals need to make now!

To learn more about how to prepare for sustainable businesses in the aftermath of COVID-19, talk to our team.