Healthcare involves a number of complexities that give rise to conservatism, with a tendency to repeat, rather than modify, modus operandi. The shear scale of the large health bodies, be it the NHS here in the UK, or the large health systems we at Polestar have been working with in the US, makes it more challenging to implement change.
But change they must – Increasing costs and demographic trends mean ever greater pressure on these organisations, both budgetary and performance – Hence the move to value based care in the US, with payments linked to results, rather than services carried out or drugs prescribed. This of course brings focus on data analysis to assess, in advance, what is likely to prompt the best results before incurring costs of non-beneficial treatments.
This Siemens Healthineers’ article below considers the lessons to be learned from outside the health sphere. Its attention focuses on Manufacturing for standardisation and processes; Retail for customer segmentation and personalisation; and Banking for digitalisation and interoperability. Not dissimilar from drawing on lessons we learn at Polestar from a deal in one sector which we are able to offer as a different perspective to a client in a completely different one – It’s amazing how often looking at the simplest things from a fresh perspective can reduce workload and enhance performance.
Despite pre-dating this week’s Thomas Cook news by a couple of weeks, the authors also managed to include a reference to the travel industry that now sounds spot on topic!
Historically, the fields of medicine and healthcare have
been somewhat insular, often thinking of themselves as
unique. In today’s competitive, consumer-driven, globalized marketplace, we believe this attitude must change.
