Summary: "Platforming Health Care to Transform Care Delivery"

According to authors Amy Compton-Phillips, MD, and David Johnson, MPP, in the NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery Journal, platforming healthcare is already here, it’s just not widely distributed.

They discuss how healthcare leaders need to focus less on ownership and control of the delivery process and more on outcomes, cost efficiency, and customer service as “patients, not hospitals, are the center of this new platforming healthcare universe.”

Consumers have more choices in healthcare service providers, which means health companies must deliver customer value and meet customer needs, wants, and expectations to remain competitive.

While other industries have embraced platforming, healthcare is lagging and still practices “systemness,” which is more internal than externally focused and “seeks efficiencies by streamlining operations, reducing service duplication, and facilitating performance comparisons between operating units.”

The article also highlights four health companies’ migration from systemness to platforming:

• AdventHealth’s investment in patient navigation tools, customer-focused training, patient-friendly billing, and spiritual care serves consumers more holistically and compassionately.

• The partnership between ProMedica Health System and Welltower to acquire HCR ManorCare, the nation’s second-largest post-acute and long-term care provider. networks.

• Fairview Health Services’s partnership with the technology firm Qventus to develop an operational transformation center that pushes real-time data to frontline personnel in ways that enhance operational decision-making, improve resource allocation, reduce caregiver stress, and deliver a better customer experience.

• The strategic alliance between Providence St. Joseph Health (PSJH) and Microsoft which will accelerate PSJH’s digital transformation, enhance consumer engagement, standardize protocols, and drive superior care outcomes.

Read more about how platforming in healthcare is transforming care delivery.