Perceived Impact of Digital Health Maturity on Patient Experience, Population Health, Health Care Costs, and Provider Experience: Mixed Methods Case Study

Abstract

Background Health care organizations understand the importance of new technology implementations; however, the best strategy for implementing successful digital transformations is often unclear. Digital health maturity assessments allow providers to understand the progress made toward technology-enhanced health service delivery. Existing models have been criticized for their lack of depth and breadth because of their technology focus and neglect of meaningful outcomes. Objective We aimed to examine the perceived impacts of digital health reported by health care staff employed in health care organizations across a spectrum of digital health maturity. Methods A mixed methods case study was conducted. The digital health maturity of public health care systems (n=16) in Queensland, Australia, was examined using the quantitative Digital Health Indicator (DHI) self-assessment survey. The lower and upper quartiles of DHI scores were calculated and used to stratify sites into 3 groups. Using qualitative methods, health care staff (n=154) participated in interviews and focus groups. Transcripts were analyzed assisted by automated text-mining software. Impacts were grouped according to the digital maturity of the health care worker’s facility and mapped to the quadruple aims of health care: improved patient experience, improved population health, reduced health care cost, and enhanced provider experience. Results DHI scores ranged between 78 and 193 for the 16 health care systems. Health care systems in the high-maturity category (n=4, 25%) had a DHI score of ≥166.75 (the upper quartile); low-maturity sites (n=4, 25%) had a DHI score of ≤116.75 (the lower quartile); and intermediate-maturity sites (n=8, 50%) had a DHI score ranging from 116.75 to 166.75 (IQR). Overall, 18 perceived impacts were identified. Generally, a greater number of positive impacts were reported in health care systems of higher digital health maturity. For patient experiences, higher maturity was associated with maintaining a patient health record and tracking patient experience data, while telehealth enabled access and flexibility across all digital health maturity categories. For population health, patient journey tracking and clinical risk mitigation were reported as positive impacts at higher-maturity sites, and telehealth enabled health care access and efficiencies across all maturity categories. Limited interoperability and organizational factors (eg, strategy, policy, and vision) were universally negative impacts affecting health service delivery. For health care costs, the resource burden of ongoing investments in digital health and a sustainable skilled workforce was reported. For provider experiences, the negative impacts of poor usability and change fatigue were universal, while network and infrastructure issues were negative impacts at low-maturity sites. Conclusions This is one of the first studies to show differences in the perceived impacts of digital maturity of health care systems at scale. Higher digital health maturity was associated with more positive reported impacts, most notably in achieving outcomes for the population health aim.

Development of a social and environmental determinants of health informatics maturity model

“…Given the broad recognition of the increasing need to address SEDoH in healthcare, the SIMM is a timely and important tool to help identify areas where organizations are not operating optimally and allow them to determine strategies that can improve their operations and processes. Further, the impact of maturity model implementation can be learned from a recent mixed methods case study in Australia that indicated that higher digital health maturity was associated with better outcomes, including maintaining a patient health record, tracking patient experience data, tracking the patient journey, and mitigating the clinical risk [ 41 ].…”

Advancing Precision Medicine: A Review of Innovative In Silico Approaches for Drug Development, Clinical Pharmacology and Personalized Healthcare

“…Another goal of digital health is improving the experience of each patient, as well as the experience of the doctor and other non-medical providers. The final objective is to address health disparities and improve them with an individualized view of each patient [ 234 , 235 ].…”