16/02/2023, 12:55 Applying emerging technology in health industries: PwC

Home Tech Effect Emerging Technology Reimagining health systems: harness experience, operations and technology

Emerging Technology

Reimagining health systems: harness experience, operations

and technology

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Summary

Solve old problems in new ways through digital tools. Maturing technologies such as advanced analytics, AI, automation
and enhanced mobile capabilities help leaders rethink processes.

Streamline operations to unburden staff. Given high rates of burnout and turnover, the most effective way to drive efficiency
and reduce costs is to address issues that improve the daily lives of staff.

Build an agile approach to transformation. The pressure on operations demands results in weeks, not years.

5 minute read January 19, 2023

Imagine that every member of your healthcare management team could scroll through a personalized digital dashboard brimming
with trends and data to inform real-time decision-making. Now imagine that it would be as easy as surfing through a popular
streaming service to snag a movie.

That tantalizing prospect isn’t a reality for healthcare companies — yet — but it’s coming. Maturing technologies, including
machine learning and AI, already can be harnessed to supercharge digital dashboards with reliable, accessible, actionable data.

Getting up to speed

While many sectors already embrace these technologies, healthcare seems to lag. Yes, healthcare companies struggle
with many of the same challenges that beset other sectors — rising costs, supply chain disruption, labor shortages and
volatile margins — but they also face a complex mission to improve patient and employee experience in cost-effective
ways. Many health systems are trying to transform the way they assemble, enable and support teams to deliver better
Subscribe here and bolster medical research and education. Traditional approaches take too long, involve too many elements,
clinical care
Ourfail to engage
insights. Youremployees
choices. and generally fall short of holistically integrating technology and process simplification.

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16/02/2023, 12:55 Applying emerging technology in health industries: PwC

Here are three imperatives for successful health system transformation:

1. Solve old problems in new ways through digital tools. Maturing technologies such as advanced analytics, artificial
intelligence/machine learning, automation and enhanced mobile capabilities help leaders rethink processes.

2. Streamline operations to unburden staff. Given high rates of burnout, turnover and the complexity of competing
priorities, the most effective way to drive efficiency and reduce costs is to address issues that improve the daily lives of
staff.

3. Build an agile approach to transformation. The pressure is on operations to deliver results in weeks, not years.

These key actions allow for balancing of technology, experience and operations to redesign ways of working while
strengthening the organization.

How to make it work

Nurse staffing and scheduling

The vision. Manage staffing and scheduling as easily as making dinner plans through a real-time reservation app. The idea
is to provide a seamless process that automates unnecessary manual effort, enables autonomy and improves the ability to
meet demand.

The work. Unite simplified processes and policies, data on each caregiver’s preferences and demographics (e.g., seniority,
overtime, vacation, credentials), predictive analytics, and automation into a technology solution for managers and front-line
staff alike.

The impact. Managers receive a vastly improved first pass at a schedule that makes more efficient use of existing staff.
The schedule is easier to manage in real time, tracking overtime costs and guiding the use of agency nurses. Caregivers
can pick up additional hours to fill schedule gaps, or easily swap a shift. The technological foundation is in place to add
predictive demand and therefore more accurately and proactively match staffing needs to demand.

Recruiting and onboarding

The vision. An app designed to help find talented individuals, match them to open positions and bring them on board as
seamlessly as possible.

The work. Recruiting and onboarding has become an especially critical function for healthcare. Technology solutions may
be achievable and proven, but data, workflow and standardization issues can get in the way of allowing technology to
simplify ways of working. For example, the variability of job codes makes it harder to introduce automation in the
requisition/job posting process.

The impact. Simplifying recruiting and onboarding is an ambitious goal, and achieving it can often seem to take too long
to deliver short-term relief. However, through a series of steps the approach can transform the recruiting and onboarding
experience to deliver:

Subscribe here
For managers,
Our insights. a proactively-managed candidate pool, allowing for AI-enabled matching of profiles to roles. AI enables
Your choices.
screening of profiles, an engaging and relevant assessment process and a personalized interview process driven by
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16/02/2023, 12:55 Applying emerging technology in health industries: PwC

richer profiles versus present-day manual recruiting processes that are time-consuming, highly variable and suffer at
scale.

For candidates, an engaging employee experience with tools and platforms that foster a community of peers and
promote coaching and mentorship. Candidates receive a preboarding experience with streamlined data collection and
gamified preboarding tasks along with complete access to essential systems on day one.

Three ways to get started

The idea of integrating technology and operations to create better experiences and a more sustainable cost of care
resonates with leaders and their teams. But technology alone can’t make this transformation work. There are a number of
key activities that will help kick-start the digital value creation journey:

1. Identify a portfolio of the highest value areas to reimagine based on impact on experience (known pain points for the
organization), bottom line (estimated cost impact based on high-level analytics) and alignment with strategic objectives.

2. Hold a series of collaborative workshops with stakeholders to identify the pain points and map out a route to your ideal
future state (technology-enabled) for each of the areas.

3. Break down each step into a series of 12-week sprints, inclusive of process redesign and technology development — to
iteratively release new products/processes while realizing bottom line impact and gaining buy-in across the organization.

When recruiting, for instance, the first step might focus on launching a day one access app that enhances provisioning and
access by improving speed, reducing errors and providing transparency to the new employee throughout the process. This
solution delivers a better experience while improving standardization and saving costs.

Health industries
Services and solutions to help organizations compete in an evolving health market, improve cost-efficiency and profitability.

Learn more

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Our insights. Your choices.
Emerging technology
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16/02/2023, 12:55 Applying emerging technology in health industries: PwC
Unlocking the business potential of emerging technologies.

Learn more

Mike Cohen
Principal, Health Industries, PwC US

Charlotte Reardon
Partner, PwC US

Alena Taylor
Principal, PwC US

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