Healthcare DXP - Geonetric

The Invaluable Role of the DXP in Healthcare

Once upon a time, legacy management software was the go-to for medical environments. And while they served their purpose, today’s rapidly advancing tech scene makes them look, well, a bit outdated.

Fixing issues on these older systems often feels like putting a temporary patch on a tire. It works for now, but it’s not a long-term solution.

Technology is nudging healthcare towards a digital revolution, one that emphasizes flexibility and responsiveness for everyone involved. In this article, we’ll journey through the perks of swapping out the old with the new, and how it can make a world of difference for both patients and healthcare professionals.

But first, before we venture too far into the weeds, let’s discuss the DXP basics.

What is a DXP?

A Digital Experience Platform, commonly referred to as a DXP, is a sophisticated digital management tool that maintains interactions across various digital channels, including content management, online shopping, and user personalization.

This platform has evolved from the more traditional web content systems, seamlessly addressing every stage of the digital customer journey — from content inception to its deployment and subsequent refinements. The advantage? It allows marketers to efficiently handle data and improve user experiences, letting them focus more on customer engagement and less on the nitty-gritty of digital management.

In essence, a DXP offers a consolidated platform to shape, oversee and refine digital pathways. As our world becomes more digitized, it’s increasingly essential for businesses to ensure coherent and high-quality digital interactions for their audience.

How Does a DXP Work in Healthcare?

In healthcare, digital experience platforms are not just about hosting content or managing transactions; they’re about creating holistic, unified digital experiences for patients, providers and staff.

To truly grasp a DXP’s potential in the healthcare space, let’s take a look at a few key features:

APIs & Integrations: Recognizing that healthcare demands specialized tools, top-tier DXPs are equipped with open architectures and flexible APIs. This facilitates easy integrations with specialized medical software and ensures comprehensive patient care.
Asset Management: Beyond patient records, DXPs simplify the handling of digital assets like medical images, videos and audio files. Thanks to cloud technology, they adapt swiftly to the diverse needs of healthcare professionals.
Commerce Capabilities: For healthcare providers who offer online services, DXPs streamline the process of setting up digital storefronts for consultations, managing payments and tracking appointments.
Content Management: Patient education is crucial in healthcare. Through DXPs, medical content can be managed and delivered consistently across various channels, from informational blogs to health apps or patient portals.
Customer Relationship Building: In healthcare, this translates to patient relationship management. With the capability to track patient data, DXPs aim to cultivate lasting, trust-based relationships, tailoring experiences for every individual.
Deep Insights & Analytics: Healthcare decisions need to be evidence-based. DXPs employ big data analysis, offering real-time insights into patient behaviors and needs, ensuring proactive care and intervention.
Experimentation: Innovations in healthcare must be approached with caution. DXPs empower medical professionals to test new content or tools, refining patient experiences based on real-world feedback and evidence
Personalization & Automation: Personalized patient care is the essence of modern healthcare. By analyzing patient data and preferences, DXPs can curate individualized healthcare experiences. The best part? Much of this can be automated, leading to consistent, tailored patient care.

As the healthcare sector continues to embrace technology, DXPs will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in crafting more personalized, efficient and impactful patient journeys.

Benefits of a DXP for Healthcare

DXPs can help healthcare organizations increase patient engagement and maximize patient retention by streamlining operations. Rather than using several platforms to perform a bevy of multifaceted tasks and workflows, a DXP can boil a lot of this overhead into one centralized hub.

To illustrate, let’s dig into the tangible benefits of integrating these platforms:

Adapting to Current Innovations: DXPs allow healthcare institutions to stay agile, adapting to the ever-evolving technological landscape. These platforms harness the latest digital tools, ensuring that healthcare services remain innovative and ahead of the curve.
Enhanced Patient Experience: At the heart of any healthcare service is the patient. DXPs offer an enriched, user-centric experience, making healthcare journeys intuitive, transparent and patient-focused. They transform complex processes into simplified digital interactions.
Efficient Processes and Protocols: Administrative tasks, from patient check-ins to medical history updates, become remarkably streamlined with DXPs. This efficiency translates to patients spending less time on paperwork and more time focusing on their health.
Empowering the Medical Staff: With DXPs, healthcare professionals can manage their tasks more efficiently, ensuring patients experience reduced wait times and receive more attentive care. The platform’s intuitive features allow for quicker access to vital patient information and more effective communication among staff.
Integration of Electronic Health Records (EHR): A central feature of many DXPs, EHRs ensure that patient data is both secure and readily accessible. These digital databases empower medical professionals to make timely, informed decisions, enhancing patient care quality.
Streamlined Medical Billing Systems: Financial operations, particularly billing, can be intricate in the healthcare sector. DXPs simplify and expedite these processes, promoting transparency and ensuring that institutions maintain a steady revenue flow.

Incorporating a healthcare DXP is not just about digitization; it’s about optimizing the entire spectrum of healthcare interactions. Through the confluence of technology and patient care, DXPs promise a healthcare future marked by efficiency, adaptability and a heightened patient-provider relationship.

Embracing Modern Digital Healthcare Services: The Legacy Software Hurdle

But, if DXPs are so beneficial, why haven’t more healthcare orgs climbed aboard? The answer is simple: their data is tied up in legacy systems.

From an era defined by stacks of paper forms, laborious data input, and unhurried information transfers, healthcare technology has burgeoned into a modern spectacle featuring telehealth innovations, advanced wearable health monitors, expansive cloud-based data repositories, and cutting-edge cybersecurity protocols.

Legacy systems just can’t keep up. Outdated platforms struggle with interoperability, lack seamless data exchange capabilities, and often demand patches merely to remain operational. It’s common for different hospital departments to maintain distinct IT systems and databases, obstructing integration and patient data sharing.

To break this down for more clarity, overreliance on legacy systems in the post-COVID landscape can lead to:

Data Silos in Healthcare: While legacy systems might demonstrate a degree of resilience, they woefully underperform in areas of modern functionality and interconnectedness. These platforms typically function within isolated data “silos,” constricting the free flow of information and hindering collaboration between healthcare professionals. Such data compartmentalization reduces cost efficiency, hampers care quality, and frequently leads to redundant services. While some might advocate for middleware solutions to bridge these silos, such makeshift approaches are ill-equipped to manage the surge of real-time data intrinsic to today’s digital health ecosystems.
The Waning Support Dilemma: Another challenge is the dwindling support for these systems. Legacy platforms can be notoriously tricky to maintain and evolve, primarily since the original experts might have moved on, retired or simply forgotten the nuances. Newer staff, unfamiliar with these older systems, are left grappling with their intricacies.
Mounting Maintenance Costs: Re-educating developers about these legacy platforms only inflates operational expenses. Some might argue for rewriting the legacy codebase. While this sounds promising, it’s fraught with challenges, from diverting critical resources to the potential pitfalls of missing undocumented, niche functionalities, leading to flawed code outputs.
Mismatch with Contemporary Digital Tools: As healthcare institutions strive to stay abreast of technological advancements, they often discover that their legacy backbones are ill-equipped for modern integrations. Consider the rising popularity of chatbots, AI-driven assistants revolutionizing patient interactions. Market Research Future highlights that 52% of patients now access health information via these chatbots. However, many dated systems lack the architecture to incorporate such innovations, leaving institutions at a competitive disadvantage.
The Daunting Cybersecurity Landscape: The healthcare domain, rich with sensitive data, becomes an enticing target for cyber malefactors. Legacy systems exacerbate this vulnerability. Their outdated security protocols often resist modern patches, leaving them susceptible to a myriad of cyber threats.

To truly harness the potential of digital healthcare and meet patient expectations, institutions must acknowledge and address the challenges posed by legacy software. It’s not merely about keeping pace; it’s about shaping a secure, efficient and patient-centric future.

The Differences Between a CMS, WEM and a DXP

Before we get into what you should look for in a DXP, it’s very important to understand the distinction between DXPs and other content management systems. For instance, many organizations depend on a Content Management System (CMS) primarily to organize and manage their website content, handling tasks from editorial oversight to user administration. It’s a foundational tool that supports a solid digital presence.

Web Experience Management (WEM), on the other hand, takes this concept a step further. While it retains the core functionalities of a CMS, its emphasis is on delivering a more personalized web experience to users. For healthcare organizations, this might mean tailoring portal content based on patient data and preferences.

Then there’s the DXP. This system is a comprehensive tool designed to offer tailored experiences across various digital touchpoints, considering multiple languages and geographies.

Although there’s some overlap in what these platforms offer, their unique capabilities can often complement one another. So, it’s common for organizations to adopt a combination of one or more of these systems. As the digital landscape becomes more intricate, understanding the nuances between platforms like CMS, WEM and DXP is valuable. It ensures that organizations make informed decisions that align with their goals.

Ultimately, the transition from relying mainly on a CMS to integrating a DXP signifies a shift from focusing solely on content to prioritizing user-centric experiences across multiple channels.

Why You Should Consider a DXP for Healthcare

Organizations that focus on digital experiences gain a competitive edge in their respective markets, for one very important reason: the market is changing.

A revealing report by PYMNTS pointed out that about 68% of millennials and younger generations prefer accessing their medical histories online. With another 60% of patients beginning their healthcare journey online, the average patient nowadays anticipates a smooth digital experience akin to what they get from other online platforms.

For healthcare entities venturing into the digital space, it’s important to remember that a comprehensive transformation isn’t mandatory from the outset. Initiatives like enhancing the homepage or offering an intuitive service directory can be beneficial starting points.

However, for organizations aiming to provide a cohesive digital experience, considering advanced tools like a DXP might be the next logical step.

What to Consider When Choosing a Healthcare DXP

Navigating the digital health landscape requires a keen understanding of the tools and platforms that best serve an organization’s unique needs. Just as patient care is individualized, so should be the approach to selecting the right digital solutions for healthcare providers.

Here’s a guide to help healthcare organizations make informed decisions in this crucial area:

Align Your Requirements with Your Goals
Every institution has distinct challenges and objectives. It might be tempting to adopt the latest technologies, but it’s crucial to discern which features align with your specific goals. For instance, do you need immediate telehealth integration, or is it a feature to consider in the future? Prioritize based on current necessities and potential future expansions.
Consult with Industry Analysts
Healthcare, being a specialized field, benefits immensely from domain-specific insights. Analyst firms such as Gartner and Forrester provide rankings tailored to healthcare digital solutions. These can be instrumental in guiding your research and ensuring your choices are backed by expert opinions.
Dive Deep into References
Healthcare is diverse, and a solution perfect for a general hospital might not suit a specialized clinic. When seeking references, ask for case studies that reflect your type of healthcare institution. Vendors who provide success stories relevant to your specific healthcare niche can more likely cater to your needs.
Evaluate Vendor Ecosystems in Healthcare
Software platforms should integrate seamlessly, ensuring patient data flows smoothly and securely between systems. Explore the software’s compatibility with other healthcare platforms, its user community, and its available documentation. Certain platforms may even offer integrations tailored for healthcare applications.
Stand Firm in Your Choices
Whether it’s patient data security, telehealth quality or support for specialized services, it’s essential to select a vendor that meets all your criteria. If you feel you’re being pushed to sacrifice a critical aspect, consider revisiting your options.

Arming yourself with the right information and prioritizing based on genuine needs ensures that the chosen digital solution serves both the healthcare provider and its patients efficiently.

Leveraging Expertise for a Seamless DXP Migration

While understanding the principles of choosing the right technology is crucial, the execution of migrating data and systems to a DXP can be a daunting task, especially for major healthcare organizations that handle vast amounts of sensitive patient data.
Here’s where a specialized software solution or service provider becomes indispensable:

Deep Domain Knowledge: A specialized provider brings a deep understanding of healthcare nuances, ensuring the DXP solution is tailored to specific needs, from patient confidentiality to regulatory compliance.
Experience in Data Migration: Data integrity is paramount in healthcare. With the seasoned expertise of a provider, there’s assurance in the safe and accurate transfer of patient records, clinical data and other vital information without loss or breaches.
Scalability and Futureproofing: As healthcare continues to evolve, a DXP solution should too. A professional service provider ensures not just a smooth migration but also sets the stage for future expansions and integrations.
Reduced Operational Downtime: Transition periods can often disrupt regular operations. However, with the expertise of a dedicated provider, healthcare organizations can expect minimal interruptions, ensuring continuous patient care.
Post-Migration Support: The journey doesn’t end after migration. There’s a need for continuous support, troubleshooting and updates, which a specialized provider is equipped to offer.

Given the intricacies involved, partnering with a seasoned player in the space becomes a strategic move. Geonetric, the driving force behind more than 500 hospital websites and intranets, stands as a beacon in this domain. With a track record of excellence and a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, Geonetric is eager to assist your organization in realizing its maximum potential in today’s digital healthcare landscape. Contact us today!