The Digital Future of Healthcare

In the vast majority of countries, national healthcare systems are facing major challenges and are suffering from a considerable cost explosion, which, combined with a significant increase in demand—especially due to demographic change and the effects of Covid 19—has led to an extreme burden on the healthcare system. One promising approach to improving this problematic situation is to significantly promote outpatient treatment over inpatient treatment in hospitals. In this way, the efficiency of the system can be increased and the burden on healthcare resources reduced. Many positive results support this view and confirm the premise. However, this approach alone is not enough to significantly alleviate the challenging situation in the healthcare system in the long term. The logical continuation of this recognized strategy is the expansion of the approach through consistent and sustainable digitalization at all levels. In this context, digitalization is prioritized over outpatient treatment, as it offers a wide range of benefits. This leads to the following conclusion: “Digital prioritized before outpatient prioritized before inpatient”. This article will structure and analyze the resulting benefits based on four dimensions from the perspective of a large IT service company. The focus is placed on the material, financial, personnel and motivational dimensions in order to describe and examine the potential benefits in detail.