I spent the last month exploring lessons learned during the COVID pandemic. Many were not new. For example, staff safety and the limited capacity of hospital emergency rooms and ICUs were discussed in CDC briefings I attended during the 2004/5 Bird Flu scare. Thankfully, we now possess technologies that should help healthcare providers more effectively and safely cope with future outbreaks.
Innovative new patient monitoring systems, for example, were already in the pipeline as COVID spread. When matched with upgraded protocols, they proved effective in raising staff safety and improving patient care, while reducing costs.
Healthcare providers will need to upgrade their business models to fully exploit these innovative technologies. By doing so, they can constructively disrupt outdated legacy systems without undermining existing operations. I’ll discuss the operational, financial, and strategic implications in my next posts.