5 trends that will disrupt Africa’s digital healthcare landscape in 2021

The Digital Healthcare Scenario in 2021

The African healthcare industry is witnessing major transformations as a result of new technological disruptions. Doctors as well as healthcare professionals in the African healthcare industry are now looking to improve their delivery of medical and care services to patients. On the other hand, technology has also empowered the patients and the communities to participate in the tracking and management of their health actively. Digital transformation of the African healthcare sector is allowing healthcare practitioners to reimagine how they work and access tools to automate repetitive tasks at the hospitals and nursing care centres. 

In 2020, the healthcare industry in Africa will witness an increase in the costs of healthcare, changed patient demographics, evolving patient expectations, new healthcare entrants, and complex health as well as technology ecosystems. As a result, healthcare stakeholders will look to invest in innovative care models of delivery, value-based healthcare services, cutting-edge digital technologies and data interoperability to build a smarter health ecosystem.

5 Key Trends

Close to 94% of the healthcare executives revealed that the speed at which their companies have grown over the last three years is owing to emerging digital technologies. Clearly, healthcare firms have realized that digital technology must become a part of their everyday functioning. Below, glance through some of the key trends that will likely disrupt the African digital healthcare landscape in 2020.

Digital Healthcare Platform Adoption

In 2020, healthcare industry in Africa will become more consumer-focused. The medical industry will be equipped with Artificial Intelligence powered tools as well as virtual interactions that would take place between patients as well as the care providers. Consumers will become aware of the digital healthcare tool and platforms and use them for improved healthcare services. Adoption of preventive healthcare tools and solutions will allow patients to remain fit & healthy. This means that healthcare technology companies and startups can focus all their attention on this particular aspect to create solutions that matches customer expectations.

EHRs will Rise

The African healthcare industry will also witness an increase in the Electronic Health Records or the e-prescriptions. At present there are several apps as well as tools that enable patients to secure online appointment with their preferred doctors and access numerous medical facilities from the comfort of their homes.  A growing number of hospitals in Africa will look to issue EHRs to their patients, containing details like care record, prescription, appointment details as well as insurance information. This implies that healthcare technology companies will have to emphasize on integration wherein they can use EHRs for predictions and insights with the help of AI.

Access for Personal Data 

The healthcare sector in Africa will generate humongous amounts of data that would further help companies to create insightful reports. On the flip side, consumers will be fully aware of all their medical data and personal data, which would eventually help them to protect their health. Put simply, this era would witness preventive medical solutions. Healthcare organizations including medical tech companies will focus more on creating preventive healthcare tools and solutions alongside ensuring protection of data.

Artificial Intelligence

With the implementation of AI, the healthcare sector in Africa will witness major transformations in 2020. Applications based on AI are helpful in analysing medical data as well as reaching an appropriate conclusion without any human intervention or input. Such apps are applied for diagnosing processes, protocol development, treatment, personalized medicine, drug development, patient care and monitoring. Thus, adoption of technology will help healthcare organizations in multiple ways. Healthcare organizations will have to search for innovative ideas to implement advanced technologies such as AI.

Financial Performance & Operational Improvement

Financial performance issues have always plagued the healthcare sector in Africa and the situation will likely remain the same in 2020. As a result the healthcare companies will look to adopt digital healthcare solutions to conduct medical transactions. Healthcare stakeholders in Africa will look to implement payment reforms like value-based models of payment that enables providers, patients and payers to achieve desired results at affordable costs. Healthcare companies will also consider adopting technology based patient engagement solutions to boost their own financial performance.

How Can We Help?

With years of experience and knowledge in the area of healthcare consulting, Horn Partners help healthcare organizations to create strategies integrating latest technologies that further enable them to lower their cost, provide value to their patients and set growth plans for future. Our healthcare sector specialists use their extensive experience to develop new procedures, analyse financial impact and review government as well as regulatory compliance.

Horn Partners help healthcare companies to design and develop their R&D strategy, prioritize medical investments and create a roadmap for future growth & expansion. We help medical firms to align their organization’s technology, product and platform roadmaps.

We are experts at identifying the processes, technology and training required for improving the services of healthcare organizations. Our healthcare consulting specialists offer digital health, consumer experience and operational transformation consultancy to assist medical firms to deliver efficient, informed and personalized healthcare services.

Our operations transformation consultancy services help healthcare organizations to embrace digital technologies and platforms and prepare them to better deal with increased global competition, expanding markets, rising patient expectations and other market changes. This further impacts their financial operations and performance positively. It also helps them to better deal with unforeseen challenges.

To sum up, we provide healthcare firms with patient-centric solutions that provide value within their limited budgets.