Fewer than one in five senior healthcare executives (19%) believe their organisations’ attempts at digital transformation have been completely successful, says a new Forrester study with KPMG.
More than half of them admit that their transformation efforts are hampered by a lack of a coherent technology strategy. A lack of staff training, budget constraints and concerns over security also feature prominently on their list of barriers to a more successful transformation.
These findings come from research undertaken by Forrester Consulting on behalf of KPMG – for which senior digital decision-makers from across the entire public sector were canvassed.
Across the public sector as a whole, digital transformation satisfaction was even lower at 17% - yet this provides scant consolation to the healthcare organisations whose own numbers lay bare the scale of the challenge they face in trying to improve their digital maturity.
Commenting on the findings, Chris Gibbons, a director in digital healthcare at KPMG, says: “I’m not really surprised at these low levels of satisfaction with how healthcare’s digital transformation has gone so far. We should, however, acknowledge the extraordinary efforts being made everyday by digital leaders in the NHS to make digital transformation happen in really challenging circumstances.
Firstly, most NHS leaders – sadly – have to spend most of their time reacting to problems; be it operational challenges to maintain clinical services or keeping ageing IT estates running. There’s rarely the sustained capacity to focus on long-term development of their organisation’s digital maturity. In the absence of a longer term strategy, organisations can bounce from one tactical technology project to the next.”
“Secondly, we need a greater focus on service and experience design rather than simply digitising existing processes. Organisations who are embracing the combination of service design, quality improvement and digital are really transforming their services. The study is, however, showing that we have a way to go in shifting to this approach from primarily a technology-driven focus.
And thirdly, it’d be remis of me not to point out the obvious financial constraints affecting digital transformation in the NHS. My challenge to Boards and Exec Teams across the NHS is to shift the focus from digital as a cost to the value enabled by digital and part of everybody’s remit, not just the CIO.”
Barriers to achieving successful digital change programmes
When asked about the barriers to achieving a successful digital transformation, 57% of healthcare respondents cited a lack of staff training; a figure way in excess of the 37% average reported across the wider public sector. That figure may be indicative of how so much of healthcare’s digital training takes the form of large, set-piece programmes, designed to support the implementation of a new technology product or service. Too little attention, suggests Chris, is paid to the continuous development of the workforce’s overall digital maturity. Without that underlying digital capability, it can be incredibly challenging to ever make best use of the latest available technology.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents also bemoaned the lack of a technology strategy; again exceeding the public sector average of 49%. Compounding this issue is the fact that the NHS already suffers from a legacy technology estate that has suffered from under-investment for some time. This ‘technology debt’ impacts the speed, cost and agility in responding to new patient and workforce needs. Without a strategy for dealing with that technology debt now, the cost of change will continue to rise.
“Without a technology strategy, how do we ever know what we’re doing adds up to the outcomes we desire from digital transformation? And, importantly develop the right long-term skills required to get value from technology?” asks Chris. “Those with clear technology strategies are typically moving towards platform-based approaches and placing AI at the centre of how they design future products and services; providing a better opportunity to drive value from investments right across the organisation. Those without clear strategies often make very tactical investments which over time creates more technical debt and a higher cost of ownership.”
Stepping up the pace in intensifying transformation efforts
According to the study, 60% of healthcare respondents are intent on intensifying their digital transformation efforts in the next 12 months. Two of their leading priorities are set to be improving their use of data and analytics technology (favoured by 42% of respondents) and moving applications to the cloud (40%).
“There’s no surprise in organisations wanting to up the pace of transformation,” says Chris. “Truly embracing digital is going to be critical in designing services to meet increasing demand, workforce shortages and in response to the productivity challenge across the NHS.”
“The focus on data and analytics is promising with huge opportunities to drive value from data in the NHS. For example, taking population health management approaches to understand and better target health and care interventions. Or using AI to support clinical decision making and reduce administrative burden. Personally, I would like to have seen more focus on patient engagement technologies to better empower patients, improve digital access and rethink how health and care services wrap around individuals. The shift to cloud is promising, but isn’t a panacea in its own right."
Overall, it’s encouraging to see the acknowledgement in this study of both common challenges we’d all recognise and the intent to intensify digital transformation efforts. Now is the time to get this right, we can’t afford not to. It’s time to grab the bull by the horns and deliver on the promise of citizen-centred digital transformation.
My advice to digital leaders in the NHS is to make this everybody’s business and to really think about the opportunities across the system, rather than just your individual organisation. Start with a clear strategy that’s user and business needs led, that’s properly costed so we’re always clear on the trade-offs in investment decisions and with a clear plan for delivery and digital skills development alongside. And finally, design with the future technology innovation in mind – ensuring we get the architectural foundations right that will enable future benefits from technologies like AI and Spatial Computing.
