Tired of their digital health spend not delivering on ROI as promised, many healthcare system CFOs have made their expectations clear: any new technology investment must deliver an ROI of at least 15 percent within 12 months.
But before chasing additional solutions, hospitals and healthcare systems need to first unlock why previous investment isn’t living up to expectations: lack of use? Insufficient training? Disconnect between functionality and user needs?
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By first uncovering the value in their existing technology stack, healthcare systems can ensure future investment has a tangible benefit to patients, doctors, and the larger organization.
Be patient and persistent
One common culprit of disappointing ROI in the healthcare space is the patient portal. Often, hospitals and health systems justify investment in these systems based on ROI predictions that assume everyone will use the systems as intended. When those projections don’t match reality, it’s natural to assume the tech is at fault.
A shiny new point solution (that hasn’t yet let you down) might seem like the answer to your ROI woes. But throwing good money after bad isn’t the answer, especially in the expensive healthcare space.
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The hunt for ROI is often most effective when it’s incremental. Just because old investment isn’t solving your healthcare system’s problems today, doesn’t mean it can’t tomorrow.
For example, imagine a new patient portal is unveiled to promises of shortened check-in times, reduced data entry, and higher patient satisfaction scores. But, six months later, those benefits aren’t realized.
The solution isn’t a different patient portal. Most likely, there are opportunities to increase the value of the existing portal by uncovering ways it isn’t being used to its full potential. That research often starts with user interviews. Those interviews might reveal that patients can’t access the portal from their mobile devices or that slow load times require administrators to duplicate the digital check-in process in the clinic.
To solve those issues, you might reconfigure the new solutions, troubleshoot technology hold-ups at the device or server level, or retrain staff to better leverage specific features.
Trust your initial purchase decision. If a solution is underperforming now, that doesn’t make it a bad investment. That just means that opportunities exist to get more out of it.
Achieving ROI on digital health spend is often an iterative process, and it accelerates over time as we eliminate roadblocks and allow solutions to fill the needs of different user groups.
Invite all users into the ROI discussion
User research helps ensure digital products are useful to the people who interact with them day to day. In the digital health space, users might be doctors, patients, providers (physicians’ assistants, nurses, etc.), support staff, or administrators.
Hospitals and healthcare systems must consider each of these groups on their hunt for increased ROI.
For example, say there’s an easy-to-use mobile app to track patient activity levels as they recover from surgery. Patients love it and it sees a 90 percent patient adoption rate. That’s excellent and should lead to a nice ROI — until we consider only 15 percent of practitioners access the patient data the app collects.
That doesn’t mean the app is a dud and we need to seek out a brand-new solution.
Instead, let’s evaluate the barriers preventing physicians from using the app. Maybe they don’t know how to access the platform. Or a broken API isn’t populating the patient data correctly.
By identifying and addressing the barriers to adoption for all user groups, hospitals and healthcare systems can get the most out of their tech investment and increase their ROI.
Hundreds of these barriers exist in every hospital or health system. Each one is an opportunity to…
- Challenge preconceived notions on why or why not a solution would work.
- Educate users on new ways to use technology.
- Eliminate unexpected roadblocks.
- Increase ROI without spending anything on new technology.
By optimizing existing technology, you can unlock new value without starting over from square one.
Find opportunities to compound adoption
Let’s return to the mobile app example above. Maybe physicians aren’t aware of how they can access patient activity data. Maybe they’re accessing it, but it’s not being saved to patient charts. Or it’s simply more comfortable for them to access the information through another system.
Whatever the reason, it’s challenging to promote the desired behavior shift. When people don’t immediately see a benefit to new technology, they’re less likely to use it.
This lack of trust in a new platform or system quickly compounds. Patients who have been recording activity through the mobile app might grow frustrated when their practitioners ask for that information again. They’ll assume the app doesn’t work, and they’ll stop logging altogether.
Fortunately, the inverse is also true. If physicians understand the high patient adoption rate and how that data will help them make the most of their clinical time, they’ll be more likely to use the platform themselves.
And when patients feel heard and see their treatment plans aligned to their activity levels, they’ll continue to use the app. That then feeds back into the physicians’ view.
When optimizing ROI from existing technology, remember to:
- Consider everyone who is expected to be using the technology.
- Ask probing questions that uncover where and why technology isn’t used as expected.
- Identify ways to improve those pain points.
That improvement might take the form of additional training and education or streamlined communication among providers, patients, and administrators. Sometimes, it will require additional investment in technology.
But by modifying existing systems instead of starting from scratch, you’ll protect ROI and build a more functional healthcare system.
In the search for ROI, start with the old
Patients, physicians, and hospital staff see the inner workings of your organization firsthand. By understanding their side of technology investment, we can make their experiences easier and make healthcare work better for everyone.
To increase your return on technology investment, start with an audit of existing technology. Where is it falling short? Do problems stem from lack of functionality or troubles with adoption? What do all users think?
If we can realize the ROI of technology investments made in the last two years, health systems can weather the impending downturn, ease the squeeze of staffing shortages, and create a culture of innovation that embraces the technology of the future.
Photo: Hong Li, Getty Images
Dael Stewart is the Lead Product Strategist and Digital Health Vertical Lead at TXI, a product innovation firm that delivers engaging experiences and custom software. Within the healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and education sectors, TXI partners with clients from audit to transformation and fuels growth by giving users the digital products they want to use.
