Digital transformation in healthcare

Healthcare systems across Europe face rising pressures – particularly the increasing healthcare needs due to growing and ageing populations, multi-morbidity, and public expectations of more personalised and convenient services. Many clinicians are struggling to cope with increasing workloads, and the gap between the supply of resources and the demand for healthcare is widening. Consequently, most countries are looking to digital transformation to close this gap but progress has largely been slow, and the digital maturity of providers, both within and between countries, varying widely. While COVID-19 has accelerated technology adoption and all countries can point to examples of good practice, there is scope for lessons to be learned more widely and for many of the alliances and partnerships that have been established over the past few months to become a driver of new models of outcome based care and shape a more predictive, preventative, personalised and participatory future.     Our survey respondents of some 1800 clinicians across seven countries identified that the top challenges in implementing digital technologies were bureaucracy in healthcare, the cost of technology and finding the right technologies. Despite the challenges that lie ahead, our surveyed clinicians felt increasingly positive about the adoption of digital technologies. In the fifth episode of Life Sciences Connect, we explore the challenges facing digital transformation in European healthcare, how things have been changing as a result of COVID-19 and how we should proceed into the future.