Hospitals in Germany are in a transition phase
After years of stagnancy, the clinical IT landscape in German hospitals is undergoing a significant transformation. Hospitals will more and more move away from proprietary Hospital Information Systems (HIS) towards non-monolithic and more flexible solutions.
In this context, hospitals are looking for flexible (often cloud-based) architectures in combination with micro-services offering a modern approach to ensure adaptable workflows, seamless integration of patient data and central data storage. Cumbersome integration efforts for previous proprietary HIS systems will become obsolete.
Addressing the opportunity – workflow handling and data strategy are key
This transformation will happen over the coming few months and years and will offer a significant opportunity for providers of micro-services which need to be based on a thorough analysis and mapping of workflows and processes.
Understanding clinical workflows in hospitals will be crucial for any provider when addressing transformation of clinical IT architecture, processes and ways-of-working both internally, as well as towards patients and private practitioners.
On top of analyzing, measuring and quantifying clinical processes on a “technical level”, it will be key to accompany clinical staff during the whole change process and during implementation.
Moreover - and especially in the light of AI-based applications and services as well as of the arrival of Electronic Patient Records (EPR) - hospitals need to develop a data strategy. A Clinical Data Repository (CDR) will be the key element of a new IT hospital landscape and a corresponding data strategy. Exchanging clinical data inside hospital departments and locations as well as with surrounding practitioners and care staff will become a fundamental requirement.
Towards a new hospital IT architecture – the role of traditional Hospital Information Systems will change dramatically
The emerging clinical IT landscape in hospitals will look differently: the large monolithic systems will be replaced by flexible microservices that are adaptable to individual workflows. Clinical Data Repositories will have a much more prominent and central role within the new architecture. Also, we will see a move towards more and more cloud-based services and solutions. These developments are illustrated in the following chart.
Looking ahead – how to get the changes on the road and realize the opportunities
To what extent the established HIS providers are capable of addressing these changes and transforming their existing platforms remains to be seen. Dealing with workflows in an adaptable and flexible way has never been a key strength of many of them.
In any case, the changing hospital IT environment offers a number of opportunities to new entrants – especially to those that are providing microservices or flexible solutions based on flexible workflows.
Beyond the technical offering, it is key for any supplier to be able to offer support and counselling to hospitals during the whole transformation process, as many hospitals risk to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of today’s initiatives.
If you want to learn more about the changing hospital IT landscape and how to successfully address resulting opportunities for your business, please reach out to us.
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