For hospitals across Europe, digital capabilities are not a goal or even a means to an end. They are the only way health care providers can achieve their strategic objectives.

In an increasingly resource-scarce environment, hospitals’ priorities range from providing the best quality of care to controlling costs and limiting unnecessary waste to fostering research and innovation. Adding to the pressures: patient satisfaction (as well as that of hospital staff) has become pivotal to hospitals’ survival and success. The future of health care will be centered on the patient and enabled through data. And all provider activities will be centered around the patient journey.

Digitization is the essential enabler for achieving hospitals’ objectives. A use case-based approach can help overcome the sometimes formidable barriers to digitizing care and the other aspects of hospital operations.

The Digital Imperative

Hospitals are complex machines. Multiple functions, both frontline and back-office, need to work synchronously to deliver care to patients, and they all rely heavily on information: patient data, hospital data, and information from other health care players. Lots of roles are intertwined along the patient journey; to provide care, hospitals must interact with other stakeholders, which are often motivated by different incentives.

Digitization both streamlines day-to-day operations and helps achieve key hospital objectives as key trends shape the health care landscape:

• More and more health care players connect into a patient-centered ecosystem, with individual players orchestrating specific steps of the patient journey and improving outcomes.
• Digitization of the operating model flattens rising costs. Internal processes become more efficient and scalable, freeing clinicians to focus on value-added activities. The head of digital transformation at a French hospital put it this way: “Digital initiatives come from a push by the hospital staff; our priority is to give back time to caregivers.”
• Digital brings care closer to patients’ homes, giving hospitals more time and resources to handle complex and high-acuity cases. Telemedicine is becoming an important part of the overall patient journey, facilitating access to care, proximity to specialized services, and personalization of services to individual needs.
• Hospitals lag other industries in addressing environmental, social, and governance requirements, and they need to catch up in the coming years. Digital technologies can help. For example, hospitals can reduce unnecessary transfers of doctors, patients, and caregivers by using televisits and home treatments. A study by Italian business school ALTEMS of 831 televisits at six hospitals in three regions identified 10 tons of CO2 saved. Early movers will gain competitive advantage and unlock sources of value creation through higher retention, lower regulatory risks, higher revenues, and higher valuations, among other factors.

Why Now?

Digital is gaining attention in hospital C-suites for two reasons. First, Europe lags other regions in digitization of health care, and the increasing demand for care, paired with the urgency of cost reduction, makes the status quo untenable. Furthermore, no hospital can look at the push toward value-based care as something to be addressed tomorrow.

Second, the time is right. The pandemic fast-forwarded patients’ readiness, increasing both their digital proficiency and their acceptance of alternative modes of care delivery. As in-person volumes declined, clinicians experimented with creative means of remote care delivery, progressively overcoming patients’ aversion to change. Investment and investor interest in the health care sector are at an all-time high: according a 2021 report from Market Research Future, the global digital health market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 23%, from $160 billion in 2021 to $1.3 trillion in 2030, driving continual progress in the use of such innovative technologies as predictive analytics, virtual and augmented reality, and image and natural-language processing.

Success and Its Barriers

Moving from a siloed to a networked organization by encouraging providers and departments to work together can help reduce the need for investment; facilitate engagement, efficiency, and implementation through economies of scale; and support data exchange. For example, one hospital network achieved a six-fold reduction in implementation time for its electronic medical records system once it standardized procedures across the group.

In our experience, a use case-based approach can break this logjam and start to generate results quickly. The results help build momentum for further change, especially if management sequences the selection of use cases for early payback. Consider a handful of examples:

• A provider network that is part of the UK National Health Service has implemented an innovative system that allows for the early detection of pressure ulcers, which affect 8% to 12% of inpatients and can extend hospital stays by 6.5 days on average. A scanner measures changes in subepidermal moisture from localized edema or accumulated interstitial fluid, reducing the prevalence of pressure ulcers by 27%.
• A digital remote-monitoring app developed by cancer research hospital Gustave Roussy in France has improved quality of care for oncological patients undergoing oral treatments. The app enables patients to record data, upload documents, and contact a dedicated nurse, who can access patients’ dashboards and receive alerts whose priority is determined by a clinical decision support tool. Gustave Roussy has reduced the number of readmissions due to toxicity events from 32% to 23% and the average hospital stay from ten to eight days. There has also been a reduction in treatment-related grade 3 and higher toxicity events, from 36.9% to 27.6%. The app has improved patients’ compliance, which has independently been associated with cost reduction and better survival rates.
• A digital platform developed in Scandinavia allows patients to book appointments online and covers symptom checks, wearables, personal health records, telemedicine, and administrative support. Physicians can use chat services, scheduling software, and patient pathway templates. The platform handles more than 1.5 million online appointments a year while increasing doctors’ productivity from 4 to as many as 10 to 20 appointments an hour, with up to a 7.5% reduction in administrative costs.
• The Italian startup WelMed has been working since 2017 to improve the experience of both patients and doctors through a telemedicine platform that covers the full patient journey, from specialty visits to pre- and post-op care to continuity of care. Since 2020, a partnership with Ospedale San Raffaele has reached 100,000 patients, covering 40,000 bookings and some 450 professionals spanning 40 specialties. Patients appreciate the simple interface, the ability to share medical images, and data security, while clinicians value better communications and the multidisciplinary approach.
• In Spain, hospital groups Quirónsalud and Viamed Salud have streamlined dermatologic triage by involving nurses and pharmacists before patients see a clinician. An initial first assessment is done in person with one of these professionals, which ensures access within 48 hours. Images are sent to a specialist through a dedicated digital channel to ensure a prompt response. Access to care has improved, as has allocation of resources. For example, 75% to 80% of cases are managed at the initial consultation. The ROI for the hospital has been immediate, but much more important, nearly 100% of patients with serious skin injuries go to surgery in less than 14 days.

The use case-based approach has shown that it can generate substantial results while blazing a trail toward full digital transformation. (See Exhibit 3.) The key is effective prioritization.

Selecting the right use cases requires assessing the feasibility and potential value of each one. (See Exhibit 4.) This analysis should segment the candidates into higher- and lower-value initiatives and those that are relatively easy to implement and those that are more ambitious. While the actual implementation plan will depend on each provider’s strategic priorities and the results it wants to achieve, the assessment results in a clear roadmap that maximizes impact and limits complexity.