Clear differences in business and technology priorities separate modern and future fit HCOs from the rest of the traditional pack.

In 2020, Forrester began homing in on future fit organizations — organizations with a technology strategy that enables their company’s customer-obsessed business strategy. Technology organizations fall into three maturity levels: traditional, modern, and future fit.

This past month, we applied this analysis to healthcare. Perhaps unsurprisingly to those who follow the industry, healthcare ranks a mediocre eighth out of Forrester’s 10 major industries: 61% of healthcare business and technology professionals work at traditional organizations. In our new report, The State Of Future Fit In Healthcare, 2023, we highlight business and technology initiatives that future fit healthcare organizations (HCOs) are using to differentiate themselves from their traditional peers. Here are three ways that modern and future fit HCOs are separating themselves from the rest of the pack:

  • Emphasize employee experience. Combating workforce shortages and high levels of burnout remains a challenge for HCOs. Modern and future fit HCOs are investing extra resources in IT capabilities to enhance the employee experience. By improving employees’ physical and mental health, HCOs increase the odds of retaining employees and improving efficiency and productivity.
  • Pursue strategic partnerships. Embracing partnerships helps HCOs build out the capabilities necessary to drive care coordination and improve patient experiences. Optimizing strategic vendor partnerships is a top priority for modern/future fit HCOs to advance deep clinical and operational expertise that they find difficult to develop in-house. For example, Northwell Health announced a partnership with Google last summer that seeks to use machine learning to develop predictive analytics capabilities on an interoperable data platform.
  • Prioritize revenue growth over cutting costs. Modern/future fit HCOs are more likely to prioritize growing revenue compared to traditional HCOs that are more likely to prioritize reducing costs. We expect organizations that primarily deliver technology based on cost to focus on improving their bottom line. They’re playing catch-up. Modern and future fit organizations prioritize customer-obsessed objectives that make a difference (such as improving the patient experience and operational resilience).

Curious to understand your HCO’s business and technology maturity — or how to take your firm from traditional to modern or from modern to future fit? Read our new report, and don’t hesitate to get in touch for an inquiry or guidance session!