Patrick Frank
What are the biggest hurdles with integrating technology in healthcare?
August 30, 2021
By Patrick Frank
The healthcare industry is in desperate need of greater technological innovation. From the micro administrative level all the way through to the consumer-facing aspects of the industry, there is massive potential to streamline dated systems, personalize care, and increase transparency. However, there are many challenges that come with integrating technology from an outsider’s perspective into long-established systems of care.
Technology in healthcare covers a wide range of things: artificial intelligence, surgical devices, virtual reality, apps, robotics. But the area that is most primed for innovation and meaningful change are the consumer-facing elements of healthcare: patient and physician interactions, surgical referrals, research and care resources. But healthcare is a complex ecosystem that requires numerous legal and regulatory standards before any major healthcare institution can seriously consider any external technology.
Old habits die hard
It’s not that proposed solutions aren’t out there, but implementation comes with a multitude of hurdles. Healthcare is a technologically outdated industry, and people have gotten used to that. No matter how inefficient the process, people have accepted that it’s the norm, and largely feel powerless to change anything. In any other business transaction, the consumer is aware of their leverage and influence. They can explore their options, ask questions, and push back in negotiations — but not in healthcare. Often we feel as though we must take whatever we are given because when it comes to our health, we will do whatever it takes.
The biggest hurdles in healthcare lie in changing habitual behavior and adapting to entirely new ways of doing things. Medical professionals are generally resistant to anything that costs money and may change their established systems and procedures. This is why it’s crucial to have a strong grasp on how technology can help different players save time, operate more efficiently, and ultimately gain more clients.
Gaining trust
The biggest hurdle when integrating technology into healthcare is trust. It is significantly easier to gain trust as a social or service platform for luxuries or non-essentials. But the issue with healthcare is that decisions made around health are typically the most important ones that anyone could make. This means consumers must trust whatever source they are using to help make those decisions. It is a common misconception that medical professionals always have the patient’s best interest at heart, but there are numerous cases where the industry’s best interests differ from those of a patient. To integrate technology into an industry that is hindered by mistrust of many people, the consumer must believe that it is there to genuinely help them and make their lives better.
In addition, as a new technology company, not only is it crucial that patients trust you, but the industry must trust you. You want the industry to be able to send patients to you and champion your technology solution as a trusted resource and not one that works against them. This is crucial because patients wil,l in most cases, rely on a physicians’ recommendation more than anyone else. Technology cannot just replace that trust, it has to supplement it.
Personalized solutions
Integrating technology into healthcare is challenging because when dealing with healthcare you are often not just offering one simple solution. You are typically solving a myriad of problems that come from having one core issue, and every patient's needs are different. Understanding and accounting for that personalized level is critical but immensely difficult to do at scale.
Additionally, in healthcare you are often dealing with extremely sensitive patient health data, which creates barriers to entry not only from a cost perspective, but from a legal and operational one as well. You have to be set up in order to protect the information, while at the same time knowing that you have limits in utilizing it to further develop your technology solution. To make it viable to many people, it also has to prove beneficial to numerous players. It should bring unique benefits to everyone from patients, to administration, to surgeons. Everyone will have unique needs, but ultimately if it is smoothly integrated by everyone, it proves its worth.
Change is slow moving
Consumer tech moves at a significantly slow pace in the healthcare industry. There are many different parties involved in every step, and it’s futile trying to change that speed or disrupt workflows that have been set in place for a long time. A relatively small amount of change has taken place in healthcare technology over the past few decades in contrast to tech as a wider industry. This is in part due to the fact that healthcare has more regulatory and compliance requirements than any other industry. This paired with skepticism from industry professionals who are reluctant to implement anything that sounds like more work and time, makes for a tough barrier.
There’s no doubt that many hurdles exist when integrating technology in healthcare, but technology is the solution to overcoming clunky, dated systems that create these hurdles. It has the power to reshape one of our most backwards industries, if only it opens itself up to the ideas and innovation of outsiders.
About the author: Patrick Frank is the co-founder & COO of PatientPartner, a platform that connects pre-surgical patients with fully recovered patients who went through the same surgery. Frank has worked in consumer technology across a variety of industries including retail banking, law, real estate, and health care. He was also included in the 2021 Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 list and PatientPartner was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Fast Company World Changing Ideas list for health care.
The healthcare industry is in desperate need of greater technological innovation. From the micro administrative level all the way through to the consumer-facing aspects of the industry, there is massive potential to streamline dated systems, personalize care, and increase transparency. However, there are many challenges that come with integrating technology from an outsider’s perspective into long-established systems of care.
Technology in healthcare covers a wide range of things: artificial intelligence, surgical devices, virtual reality, apps, robotics. But the area that is most primed for innovation and meaningful change are the consumer-facing elements of healthcare: patient and physician interactions, surgical referrals, research and care resources. But healthcare is a complex ecosystem that requires numerous legal and regulatory standards before any major healthcare institution can seriously consider any external technology.
Old habits die hard
It’s not that proposed solutions aren’t out there, but implementation comes with a multitude of hurdles. Healthcare is a technologically outdated industry, and people have gotten used to that. No matter how inefficient the process, people have accepted that it’s the norm, and largely feel powerless to change anything. In any other business transaction, the consumer is aware of their leverage and influence. They can explore their options, ask questions, and push back in negotiations — but not in healthcare. Often we feel as though we must take whatever we are given because when it comes to our health, we will do whatever it takes.
The biggest hurdles in healthcare lie in changing habitual behavior and adapting to entirely new ways of doing things. Medical professionals are generally resistant to anything that costs money and may change their established systems and procedures. This is why it’s crucial to have a strong grasp on how technology can help different players save time, operate more efficiently, and ultimately gain more clients.
Gaining trust
The biggest hurdle when integrating technology into healthcare is trust. It is significantly easier to gain trust as a social or service platform for luxuries or non-essentials. But the issue with healthcare is that decisions made around health are typically the most important ones that anyone could make. This means consumers must trust whatever source they are using to help make those decisions. It is a common misconception that medical professionals always have the patient’s best interest at heart, but there are numerous cases where the industry’s best interests differ from those of a patient. To integrate technology into an industry that is hindered by mistrust of many people, the consumer must believe that it is there to genuinely help them and make their lives better.
In addition, as a new technology company, not only is it crucial that patients trust you, but the industry must trust you. You want the industry to be able to send patients to you and champion your technology solution as a trusted resource and not one that works against them. This is crucial because patients wil,l in most cases, rely on a physicians’ recommendation more than anyone else. Technology cannot just replace that trust, it has to supplement it.
Personalized solutions
Integrating technology into healthcare is challenging because when dealing with healthcare you are often not just offering one simple solution. You are typically solving a myriad of problems that come from having one core issue, and every patient's needs are different. Understanding and accounting for that personalized level is critical but immensely difficult to do at scale.
Additionally, in healthcare you are often dealing with extremely sensitive patient health data, which creates barriers to entry not only from a cost perspective, but from a legal and operational one as well. You have to be set up in order to protect the information, while at the same time knowing that you have limits in utilizing it to further develop your technology solution. To make it viable to many people, it also has to prove beneficial to numerous players. It should bring unique benefits to everyone from patients, to administration, to surgeons. Everyone will have unique needs, but ultimately if it is smoothly integrated by everyone, it proves its worth.
Change is slow moving
Consumer tech moves at a significantly slow pace in the healthcare industry. There are many different parties involved in every step, and it’s futile trying to change that speed or disrupt workflows that have been set in place for a long time. A relatively small amount of change has taken place in healthcare technology over the past few decades in contrast to tech as a wider industry. This is in part due to the fact that healthcare has more regulatory and compliance requirements than any other industry. This paired with skepticism from industry professionals who are reluctant to implement anything that sounds like more work and time, makes for a tough barrier.
There’s no doubt that many hurdles exist when integrating technology in healthcare, but technology is the solution to overcoming clunky, dated systems that create these hurdles. It has the power to reshape one of our most backwards industries, if only it opens itself up to the ideas and innovation of outsiders.
About the author: Patrick Frank is the co-founder & COO of PatientPartner, a platform that connects pre-surgical patients with fully recovered patients who went through the same surgery. Frank has worked in consumer technology across a variety of industries including retail banking, law, real estate, and health care. He was also included in the 2021 Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 list and PatientPartner was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Fast Company World Changing Ideas list for health care.