Defining Digital

Every organization these days has a digital mandate to transform itself for the 21^st century and with that digital transformation, drive overall business growth. However, no one can seem to quite define what exactly going “digital” means. Depending on the specific organization, audience, and context in which you are discussing, digital means different things to different people. That is OK – because there is indeed no one, clear definition – but it is rather a set of different guiding principles and disciplines all with the end goal of addressing business challenges and opportunities. Digital strategy can therefore be thought of as a smattering of different components:

Just as important in baselining an understanding of what digital is, is clarifying what it is not. Some of the common misconceptions that have surfaced also create unnecessary confusion:

Decoding Digital in Healthcare

Now that we understand digital can help us do more, what exactly does it mean in the healthcare world? Quite simply, digital enablement in health takes those same digital strategy principles and applies them with a healthcare stakeholder-centric perspective (i.e., patient, payer/provider, pharmacist, health system, etc.) to improve health outcomes and achieve clinical and commercial business goals. Digital health tools can therefore be bucketed into broad, overlapping categories all under the umbrella of generating actionable insights from health data that is generated, captured and stored:

• Mobile apps & channels: Mobile health applications, devices & sensors allow real-time feedback between healthcare stakeholders while collecting meaningful data and providing an enhanced user experience
• Connected platforms: Digital assets integrated and transformed into medical products & services can create actionable insights for product development, marketing and patient engagement or treatment
• AI, Big Data & analytics: Enhanced data science, management & analytics can provide better knowledge across the healthcare value chain (drug development & launch, micro-targeting of health information etc.)
• Cloud & automation: Cloud-based solutions such as on-demand infrastructure or integrated EMR systems, allow greater access, performance and scalable computer power at a lower cost

The value-add of these digital health strategies and solutions can be realized across the healthcare stakeholder spectrum to meet both clinical and commercial business challenges, as discussed further in our Business Insights Podcast. Or read our Digital Forward Thinking in Healthcare factsheet to learn more about digital strategy, digital health tools and IQVIA digital solutions. For more information, please feel free to contact us.

To read the next installment in our blog series, “Digital strategy: ‘you can’t improve what you don’t measure’” click here.