SINGAPORE- Media OutReach - 26 November 2018 - Healthcare organizations embracing digitaltransformation have seen improvements of between 14% to 21% in patient outcomesand disease prevention, as well as patient experience, integrated carecoordination, cost reductions, and innovation of care teams, according to new findingsreleased from a joint Microsoft-IDC Asia/Pacific study.

The 159 respondents surveyed for "Unlocking the Economic Impact ofDigital Transformation in Asia Pacific[1]"identified those five areas as benefiting the most from digitaltransformation initiatives. They also expect to reap further enhancements of atleast 30% by 2020, with integrated care coordination expected to see thebiggest gain.

"Facing increasing patient expectations, rapid advancement oftechnology and strong emerging competitors, healthcare organizations need toprogress faster and accelerate their digital transformation journey to developnew healthcare services. Healthcare leaders can no longer afford to just focuson basic optimization of operational processes. There is an imminent need forthem to go beyond that and transform the entire business holistically. By doingso, they can ensure that they remain competitive in the industry as patientcare continuum becomes increasingly important," Keren Priyadarshini, Regional Business Lead, Worldwide Health, Microsoft Asia.

Transforming Care Continuum withData is Key in the Digital Transformation Journey

"More healthcare organizations are recognizing that there is a shiftaway from hospital-based care. People are increasingly focused on improved healthyliving and preventive care, where a combination of smart medical devices, IoT, cloud,data analytics and AI plays a crucial role", said Keren.

"According to the Study, digital transformation could potentiallydouble the improvements of integrated care coordination by 2020. It means thatwe can expect a substantial enhancement in intelligent healthcare continuum,including preventive care, diagnosis and treatment, home and elderly care infuture."

The Study showsthat healthcare leaders in the region are strongly focused on patients'healthcare journeys, as they have identified three patient-related metrics astheir top digital transformation key performance indicators (KPIs):

1.    Process andService Effectiveness: How an organization is improving upon itsexisting process and service delivery to ensure patients are engagedeffectively

2.    Patient Advocacy: Whether patientsare referring their preferred healthcare organization to their peers, or areadvocating their preferred service provider

3.    DataCapitalization: How an organization is leveraging data within theorganization to develop new products and services to improve healthcaredelivery

"Data has becomean increasingly important asset to organizations across different industriesincluding healthcare. Healthcare leaders of today have already identified thatdata capitalization, or how data is being used as a capital asset within theorganization is one of their key focus areas and their KPIs. As a result, morehealthcare organizations are investing in core technologies such as big dataanalytics as well as emerging technology such as AI, Cognitive and Robotics tofully assess and utilize the available data," said VictorLim, Vice President IDC Asia/Pacific.

Keren added: "Data is key to develop new services, andto improve the patient care continuum. As healthcare organizations collect data from basic administrationprocesses as well as patients' healthcare records in a depersonalized way, theamount of latent and active data available for harnessing is immense. This willgrow even faster with mass adoption of smart medical devices and IoT. To winthe digital transformation race, healthcare leaders must identify the bestapproach to leverage technology to enhance healthy living and preventive care,diagnosis and treatment, along with home and elderly care. Also, healthcareplayers need to share theseapproaches effectively across industry professionals and caregivers in asecured way to achieve better health outcomes for a patient."

AI as the next frontier of healthcaretransformation

Respondents from the Study identified the emergence of disruptivetechnology as a top business concern today. The rise of ArtificialIntelligence, for example, will shift the paradigm of care for healthcareorganizations in the short term.

In fact, by 2019, IDCpredicts that 40% of digital transformationinitiatives will be supported by Artificial Intelligence/ Cognitivecapabilities[2], providing timely,critical insights for new operating and monetization models in Asia Pacific(excluding Japan).

In India, the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases is high and it isamong one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity. As such, Microsoft'sAI Network for Healthcare recently teamed up with ApolloHospitals to embark on a digital transformation journey indeveloping and deploying new machine learning models to predict patient riskfor heart disease and assists doctors on treatment plans. This is part of MicrosoftHealthcare NExT aimed to accelerate healthcare innovationthrough artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

"Thiscollaboration with Microsoft's path-breaking technologies like ArtificialIntelligence and Machine Learning will help better predict, prevent and manageheart disease in the country. Cardiac disease is amongst India's leading causesof mortality and morbidity, which is exacting a toll on the health andwell-being of our citizens. Given our large clinical database and significantpool of clinical talent, the partnership will help impact the global burden ofcardiac disease. While we commence this in India, we will validate thealgorithms and work towards creating a global consortium to tackle multipleconditions in cardiovascular disease," said Sangita Reddy, Joint ManagingDirector, Apollo Hospitals.

For any healthcare organization to adopt an effective digitaltransformation strategy, they would need to consider three key steps:

1.    Developing adigital culture: Organizations need to address organizationalshifts required for successful implementation of digital transformationinitiatives. This include moving away from siloes and encouraging use of dataacross all processes internally and externally to develop a patient-centricculture. This is where healthcare organizations can work on improvingintegrated care coordination to ensure a seamless process of data sharing withvarious parties.

2.    Capitalizing ondata: Healthcare organizations need to understand and unlock the potentialof data in developing differentiated patient experiences. By tapping into thedata, healthcare organizations can enhance existing care services or create newrevenue streams that will help to improve healthcare continuum. As such,healthcare organizations need to focus on data capitalization as one of thenewer KPIs to track progress and to measure performance on their digitaltransformation efforts.

3.    Embrace newtechnologies: Big data analytics, Artificial Intelligence andeven augmented or mixed reality will play an integral role in thetransformation of the healthcare industry. When implemented, they have thecapabilities to unlock new patient insights and scenarios which helps shapeservice delivery models. Another example would be how emerging technologies canhelp develop virtual medical services to increase patient access to medicalservices.

To learn more about Microsoft in Healthcare, visit https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-us/industries/health/

About Microsoft

Microsoft(Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of anintelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower everyperson and every organization on the planet to achieve more.