The Pandemic was a disruptive force to every business sector on the planet, and many industries are still finding their footing even months after the initial wave. The healthcare industry, however, was at the tip of the spear from the very beginning, with little time to react before being thrust into the middle of a rapidly evolving and dangerous situation.
Emergency rooms and ICUs coast to coast were quickly overwhelmed by an influx of patients stricken with a deadly and infectious disease about which very little was known. The pandemic put enormous pressure on health systems both logistically and financially. As patients deferred elective procedures, the industry saw a drop-off in revenue, and uncertainty around continued government assistance for healthcare organizations made their financial stability uncertain.
In spite of these challenges, some hopeful signs have come to light. Digitization saw a steep uptick as the care model shifted in part from strictly in-person to remote, an evolution many felt the industry was overdue for. The pandemic has also pushed health systems to consider new methods and technologies for delivering their services, which could have a long-term impact on the efficiency of the system.
The State of Healthcare Consulting
At the height of the crisis, healthcare consultants sprung into action, strategizing how they could best help clients avoid obstacles and best serve patients in an unprecedented time for the sector.
"When COVID first hit, we would meet three nights a week as a partner group just so we could come forward with how we can help our clients, how can we help them navigate. Their demands changed from when it first hit in March or April to now, and it was really us as consultants trying to help them determine what they need, what we can help them do, whether it was supply chain issues, creating new partnerships, or helping evaluate utilization," says Tina Wheeler, US Healthcare Sector Lead for Deloitte.
"Now I think everyone's looking at financial sustainability, performance improvement, and really looking at cost. So there's many ways clients have been asking us to help," she says.
The sudden, precipitous shift to consulting firms working from home presented some specific challenges in an industry like healthcare in which face-to-face care is the norm. However, it also created opportunities as many health systems enhanced their digital offerings out of necessity.
"At the beginning the impression was that we were all going to get time back for not commuting or traveling. But that time has been lost to the inefficiency that comes from not 'walking the halls' or having casual interactions with each other and with clients. We like to work elbow-to-elbow with our clients. We co-create and co-ideate, and we enjoy that dynamic," says Will Hinde, Managing Director, Healthcare & Life Sciences at West Monroe.
"Most healthcare companies are still in the stone ages of digitization and this crisis has brought us further, faster. We're helping clients across all sub-sectors in this area—for example, with telemedicine make it a product that providers can offer and payers can compensate for and consumers can use," he says.
Another front-of-mind concern for health systems is the safety of providers themselves, many of whom are routinely exposed to infected patients.
"One of the recurring challenges we've seen is how health systems are dealing with the well being of caregivers. They've got these clinicians on the front lines, how do we care for them," Wheeler says.
Telehealth and Digital Medicine Rise, But Not Without Challenges
In a dynamic healthcare crisis, where even face-to-face interactions between patients and doctors presented potential risks, digital technologies like virtual health visits and telemedicine played a key role.
"Telemedicine is obviously not a new technology to come out of the pandemic. But its adoption among providers was key to their survival, and patients who would have previously dismissed it had to consider it as an option," Hinde says.
He pointed to a recent West Monroe survey of 1,500 consumers in three major U.S. cities that revealed their use of telehealth services nearly doubled over a six month period, going from 27 percent before the pandemic to 49 percent after.
"Just having telemedicine is not a strategy, though, and that's why we're working with providers, systems, and payers on their overall virtual health strategy," he notes.
"Telemedicine is just one part of an overall experience for patients and should be deployed where it makes the most sense."
The pandemic has been a unique opportunity for healthcare systems who lag in digital adoption to step up their remote-delivery services, raising the bar industry wide on tech adoption.
"The biggest opportunity is the acceleration of digital. It's no longer a choice, and there is an insistence—not just from the executive team, but from all stakeholders—that the healthcare industry does things differently," Hinde says.
"Healthcare is still behind other industries and the opportunity is finally here to collectively elevate the ecosystem. The pandemic, I think, has gained the buy-in of the industry and all the folks who work within it to be more digital-forward, more patient-centric, and understand that these goals are actually achievable—that they can actually administer healthcare differently."
Another concern around the rise of virtually delivered healthcare services is the cybersecurity implications, as patient health records make the move to digital form, which are more vulnerable to would-be cybercriminals than traditional paper records.
"I think COVID has been a catalyst for virtual health, and it's even shown how the roles around interoperability and sharing of data will become even more critical," says Wheeler.
"I think it's really important that they're focused on cyber and technology."
A Return to Normal On the Horizon?
The healthcare market's subsectors are all experiencing different challenges, but at the outset of the pandemic, they all went through the same initial cycle: "panic, pivot, and then stabilization," Hinde says.
The initial months of the pandemic saw patients deferring elective surgeries, check-ups, and even dental cleanings, which combined with shifting resources on the payer side, put a lot of downward pressure on revenue streams. Over time, however, those trends have slowly started to reverse.
"Aside from working virtually, in healthcare consulting the overall state is somewhat back to business as usual—patients can no longer delay seeking care for other ailments and elective procedures and they're also going back to the dentist. In pharma, there are clear leaders in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, so the rest are returning to other drugs and therapeutics that pay the bills," says Hinde.
Consultants say there is some light at the end of the tunnel, however, such as the ongoing transformation of outdated service models and moving the ball forward when it comes to technological adoption.
"COVID has been a boulder that that was thrown into the pond, but we need some good to come of it, so there will be some disruptors that will help, whether it's focused on data, focused on technologies, or a push for better data shared amongst healthcare providers and payers, as well as I think virtual health. I think that those are also things that could be the positives that come out of the long term," says Wheeler.
Of course, facing a potential winter resurgence of COVID-19, health systems could be far from out of the woods.
"If it comes back with a huge resurgence, it keeps the focus on the overwhelming demand on providers and increases pressure on life sciences companies. It could also shed light on insurers that continue to collect premiums while services go unused," Hinde says.
"We may also see more people become unemployed and lose their health insurance, which affects the entire ecosystem's ability to take on the improvements that they need to."
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