Hospitals and health systems across the country are doubling down on digital transformation efforts by creating new tools and launching innovative programs to improve workflows, boost efficiency and better serve patients where they are.
Brenda McCormick, CFO of Children's Minnesota in St. Paul, told Becker's Hospital Review how the hospital's digital transformation is helping attract more patients in new ways.
Question: How does your organization aim to better serve patients in the next five years? What are your core focuses?
Brenda McCormick: At Children's Minnesota, one of our strategies to better serve our patients over the next five years is our digital transformation that focuses on improving overall access. We are accelerating this work to make it easier for families to find the care they need, when and where they need it. We are utilizing our internal digital experts and partnering with external experts who can see what's next in the digital space before we can. We have a digital governance board, and also project sponsors and strategy owners for each initiative and tactic. Most of our digital transformation focus is on patient-facing activities and asking the question, "How do we meet our patient families where they are?"
As an exclusively pediatric healthcare provider, our patient families are different from adult systems. Our average family is younger — Millennial and Gen Z — who live most of their lives online and on mobile. For this reason, we're in the process of expanding online scheduling, online bill pay, mobile access, medical pre-appointment forms and scheduling directly from our "Find a Doc" application. In 2021, we launched a new virtual visit platform to provide a more comprehensive and efficient user experience. Our digital transformation allows us to serve more patients in new ways while maintaining our commitment to providing highly-specialized and compassionate care.