The Impact of Innovation in Healthcare Management

The healthcare innovation ecosystem is rife with complex and highly challenging activities for both health administrators and health providers. These intricacies of healthcare management discourage creative thinking and innovation—and many health administrators with hasty approaches are quickly defeated. Some of these challenges are results of strict, unfavourable or conservative regulations in the industry, including inadequate investment in research, bureaucratic setbacks, and disregard or overemphasis on ethical standards. But Pederson (2016) points out that the turbulent healthcare industry, especially its dramatic improvements in network security as well as the capability to collate and share patient record (including images) with health providers in different locations, underscores the urgent need for health organizations to increase investment in R&D. More importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred health systems to improvise and revolutionize the industry. There are four major ways this objective can be achieved with technology adoption models (TAM) vis-a-vis:

• Delivery of more offshore services

Integration of technology in health care delivery has yielded tremendous benefits—particularly in the area of outsourcing diagnostic and imaging services (such as X-rays and mammograms). Technology has also enhanced communication among health providers and between care users.  In addition, physicians in developed and developing countries have been empowered to deliver more efficient care services by leveraging advanced health technology in e-health and/or telemedicine. Technology adoption in health care does not only favour specialists and care users in developed and developing countries; people in remote areas of less-developed countries and/or the underserved populations now have access to care—thanks to innovations in the health care industry. As part of scientific and technological efforts to expand coverage of health services, telemedicine has enhanced ways of distributing workloads and lowering costs (Weaver et al., 2014).

Another good example of the impact of innovation in healthcare management is ‘Teleradiology’ — a care process that captures and transmits X-rays taken in one location to health providers in another location. With this last example, it is understandable that one of the factors driving growth of teleradiology is the significant scarcity of radiologists and demands for faster imaging in trauma situations across global health systems. But the increasing demand for health services, especially from patients suffering chronic ailments and the fast-ageing populations calls for an urgent integration of advanced health technology to deliver efficient and highly impactful round-the-clock services (Tsai et al., 2014).

• Utilization of health information systems

Groundbreaking interventions in health care delivery were powered by scientific breakthroughs that would not be realized without advanced technologies. Although global health information systems were designed to function as storage towers—with strict rules and formats, the systems usually impede the opportunity to integrate multiple data and make them readily available for use when needed. In some cases, a care user’s chart in one hospital cannot be transmitted to health providers who need them in another location. Another challenge is the different languages and measures that create challenges in data encryption and use of software designed to enhance over-the-air communication (Fragidis et al., 2018).

However, health systems have achieved greater success with advancements in health technology (such as AI, IoT, wearables and EHRs) that allow medical records to be collected, analysed, processed and utilized for patient-centred care across larger populations at the same time. The time-saving and cost-effective innovations have not only reduced the physician-per-customer ration but increased concentration in direct care.

• Large-scale monitoring of health-related issues

The contributions of health technology in monitoring health-related behaviours such as alcohol consumption and drug use are enormous. Innovations in health care delivery have also improved diagnoses, treatment and prevention of new, widespread and isolated cases of infectious ailments.

On monitoring drug safety laws across the world, governments and global institutions are exploiting advanced technologies to share information on international database—and this has benefitted companies in the travel industry. Likewise, healthcare organizations are also leveraging technologies to monitor individual patient’s prescriptions and possible consumption of food, drinks and other treatment-inhibiting behaviours. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration in partnership with Medwatch, has sponsored healthcare programs aimed at addressing current gaps in technology adoption and similar initiatives are found in the UK, Canada and other developed, developing and less-developed countries. Advancement in health technologies has also focused on improving safety of food and medical products available the global marketplace thereby helping government agencies to regularly collect, process and share information between countries.

• Providing more high-quality information to doctors and patients

Healthcare leaders have a responsibility to find innovative strategies and implementation methods that create value for patients and stakeholders in the industry. Although textbooks, journals and websites provide usable advice on health-related issues, and despite the huge successes or impact, patients cannot rely solely on these sources to solve major health needs. Likewise, health leaders and care providers need more responsive, result-oriented innovations to function effectively in their duties and obligations (Pedersen., 2016).

Technological and scientific innovations have improved clinical information and practice, specifically related to patient safety and quality care. But there is need for constant research that enhances knowledge of how data is applied at the point of care and to possibly identify areas that require improvement. Innovation in healthcare management is focused on creating new processes that enable change management with evidence-based guidelines and regulatory requirements. One of the achievements of health technology is the evolution of data-centric EHRs that has changed the way health providers manage care delivery around the world.

However, both health administrators and governments can do more to transform outdated care delivery processes by encouraging creative thinking and increasing investments in R&D. Moreover, employees and stakeholders need a conducive and motivating environment to suggest new and better ways of automating information gathering, sharing and reporting (Awosika., 2014). Some of the ways to leverage health informatics and leadership innovation are:

• By explore how to eliminate manual data entry in health care practice.
• By discovering new and better ways of making healthcare data more accessible to care users either by wearable devices or mobile phones.
• By identifying more ways of creating customer value via online portals and internet devices/apps.
• By maximizing the social media to monitor and share health informatics.

Finally, health leaders, stakeholders and patients should recognize that there are no limits to the benefits accruing from integrating advanced technology and proven care models. Humans and only limited by their imaginations. Thus, a collaborative efforts innovation-conscious minds are necessary to achieve growth of global health systems (Wisdom et al., 2014).