In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems worldwide are embracing emerging technologies to address ongoing challenges, including cost reduction, improved access to care and a shortage of skilled workers. AI and other technologies offer the potential to personalise patient interactions, streamline administrative and care processes and free up clinicians to focus on complex procedures. Sustained investments in technology are crucial to fully harness its potential and transform healthcare delivery.

Key takeaways:

• Healthcare providers are partnering with tech companies to develop AI tools that can better predict clinical outcomes, enhance radiological imaging and optimise sleep monitoring.
  
• AI has the potential to transform healthcare by optimising both administrative functions and care delivery. It will have financial and non-financial benefits, such as improved care quality, enhanced patient experience and greater clinician satisfaction. Private providers may gain the greatest benefits from optimisation in care, claims and provider relationship management.
  
• Predictive AI could forecast patient volumes and help hospitals adjust staffing and resources by predicting future resource needs, analysing detailed data and identifying high-impact patterns and trends.
  
• AI is quickly becoming a competitive necessity in the healthcare sector. Yet many organisations are still understanding what AI can mean for them. Deloitte created the AI Dossier to give leaders in different industries summaries of key issues and opportunities and how AI can help to achieve them.

Download this chapter of the report

As the world witnessed a sudden surge in the number of patients, increased health care demands, labor shortages, and supply chain issues during the pandemic – adoption of new technologies such as telemedicine and electronic health records (EHRs) proved to be the most efficient solution for providers to address these challenges. Digital technology attempt to reduce costs, deal more effectively with the changing patterns of demand, address a shrinking clinical workforce, and prepare better for the next global health crisis. 

Key takeaways:

• COVID-19 accelerated the shift to cloud-based technologies designed to strengthen business operations and drive more customer interactions into the digital realm. This trend is forcing the large EHR providers to migrate their products and services to the cloud and develop partnerships with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) providers.
• Emerging technologies such as AI, telehealth, blockchain, and monitoring devices, such as sensors, wearable and ingestibles, are providing real-time and continuous data about our health and our environment.  This is redefining the future of health care and health delivery.
• Due to increased exposure to cloud technology, hospitals already are prime targets for ransomware attacks and other cybercrime. One way to prevent such attacks would be to apply blockchain technology to health data. 

Download the report:

The global health ecosystem observes great disparities based on age, location, gender, income, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation, despite significant efforts to eliminate them by health care providers, insurers, government agencies, aid organizations, and others. The COVID-19 pandemic further underscored the pervasiveness of health inequity. The virus disproportionally affected the most vulnerable groups, and focused public attention on how communities are only as strong as their most compromised members. As a result, many health organizations are rethinking how to address health inequity. For organizations, addressing biases and advancing health equity is not merely a moral imperative but also a competitive advantage. A coordinated effort among policy makers, industry executives, government officials, social influencers, and community organizers to close the widening global health equity gap.

Key takeaways:

• The social, economic, and environmental circumstances that together determine the quality of the health of the population, can have a greater impact on health outcomes than the care provided by clinicians.
• A key measure of health equity is life expectancy. If people living in the same geographical areas have significant differences in the life expectancies, it can spotlight the drivers of health inequities. The pandemic added to the health equity divide, affecting access to food, childcare, stable housing, and income.
• Racism and bias also threaten the adoption of new technologies that could provide better care delivery to these underserved populations. Telemedicine is a key component of the digital transformation of health care since the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn’t been adopted by all populations equally. 

Download the report:

Climate change is a universal risk to human health and well-being. As these risks mount, providers face the challenge of maintaining the quality of care in the face of mounting financial pressure. What’s more, a changing climate requires greater disaster preparedness, especially in economically disadvantaged regions. While treating the health consequences of climate change falls to the global health care sector, they are also a contributor to the rising carbon levels driving climate change. Responding to these threats requires health systems that are more resilient and sustainable. But the challenge still remains. How are the leaders preparing themselves for a better future?

Key takeaways:

• Health organisations must be prepared to provide care in the wake of natural disasters, ensure the supply of medicine amid weather-related disease outbreaks, and adopt practices that reduce waste.
•  While emissions remain one of the biggest challenges, health care facilities also are looking for ways to reduce waste and boost sustainability. More providers are adopting recycling and waste management programs, substituting single-use materials with reusable ones where practical and adopting local suppliers where possible to minimise supply disruptions.
•  The pandemic added an urgency to make supply chains more sustainable. Therefore, care providers are looking for improvements in delivery methods, such as virtual care. 

Download the report:

Climate change poses significant health risks, particularly in low-income areas with poor health infrastructure. The healthcare sector needs to adapt its practices to mitigate the impact of climate change on patient care and healthcare delivery. Healthcare organisations should implement sustainability measures to reduce their environmental impact and improve resilience to climate change. Additionally, healthcare providers should work with policymakers to develop climate-resilient healthcare infrastructure and collaborate with community organisations to address the social determinants of health that are exacerbated by climate change.

Key takeaways:

• There are severe heat crises in regions unaccustomed to dangerously high temperatures. One of the ways hospitals are addressing acute energy insecurity and that affects the delivery of care is by building resilience into their operations.
• Sustainability regulations vary from region to region. In the absence of a comprehensive supplier engagement programme, standardisation or clear mandates, breaking down the barriers between purchasing and clinical care can be challenging.
• Measuring environmental impact and being able to compare and learn from peers on how to minimise impact is another way the healthcare sector can build more sustainable systems.
  
• A commitment to information sharing can also influence health outcomes for populations disproportionately affected by social determinants of health.

Download this chapter of the report