The future of healthcare is data-driven: Key takeaways from the CGI Voice of Our Clients

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst, accelerating the need for transformation within the health and life sciences industries. While it underscored existing challenges and placed immense strain on frontline healthcare workers, it also highlighted the resilience and adaptability of these sectors.

This need for transformation continues to drive several key priorities, including:

• Integrating emerging technologies into patient care and research to accelerate analysis and streamline operations
• Maintaining a focus on high-care standards
• Ensuring data privacy and security
• Strengthening supply chains

All these priorities are substantial engagements in scope and effort that are being actively investigated, developed, and implemented.

Overall, this push towards unprecedented change is driven by rising consumer expectations, cutting edge technological advances, and a continued increase in the availability of data.

The CGI 2024 Voice of Our Clients insights

To understand how industry leaders are navigating this evolving landscape, CGI conducts its annual Voice of Our Clients research, engaging in in-depth conversations with health and life sciences executives from around the world. Their insights reveal a clear consensus around five key investment areas poised to drive transformation and improve patient outcomes: digital transformation, data analytics & management, automation, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. These strategic investments are set to modernize health and life sciences, ultimately leading to enhanced patient care, increased efficiency, and a profound impact on lives.

We further explored these findings and concluded that to thrive, organizations must embrace data-driven transformation.

Data as a strategic imperative

In today's data-driven world, effective business and health data analytics and management are no longer just a nice-to-have, they're a strategic imperative for health and life sciences organizations. By investing in robust data strategies, these industries can unlock the full potential of their data, foster innovation, and ultimately improve patient care, drive business success, and change lives.

Data-driven transformation is about more than just collecting and analyzing data. It's about using data to make better decisions, improve efficiency, and drive innovation. In the health and life sciences industries, data-driven transformation can lead to improved patient outcomes, reduced costs, and increased access to care.

Focusing on the impacts of data-driven strategies, we can further demonstrate the impacts across our five investment areas:

• Digital transformation: Data is essential for digital transformation initiatives, such as implementing electronic health records (EHRs), developing telehealth solutions, and creating personalized medicine programs.
• Data analytics and management: Effective data analytics and management are essential for turning data into actionable insights. This includes developing strategies for data governance, security, and interoperability.
• Automation: Data can be used to automate tasks, such as claims processing, appointment scheduling, and clinical decision support.
• Artificial intelligence (AI): AI is being used to develop new diagnostic tools, treatment plans, and drugs. Data is essential for training and validating AI models.
• Cybersecurity: Health and life sciences organizations must invest in robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive patient data.

Data-driven transformation is not a one-size-fits-all approach across the broad spectrum that is Health and Life Sciences. Strategies and priorities will vary depending on the specific subsector within industries. For example, pharmaceutical companies have different data needs than hospitals or government agencies, payers and financial institutions leverage data in alternative ways to researchers, and so on.

To truly appreciate the nuances, we identified key subsectors that make up the health and life sciences industries:

• Providers and care delivery - the organizations and professionals (hospitals, clinics, physicians, nurses, etc.) that provide healthcare services directly to patients 
• Payers and financing - the entities (insurance companies, government programs, employers) that finance healthcare services
• Public health and government - the regulatory bodies and agencies responsible for setting and enforcing standards, ensuring safety and efficacy, and managing public health programs
• Life sciences (including pharmaceutical and medical device companies) - the companies that research, develop, manufacture, and market pharmaceuticals and medical devices

While these subsectors are distinct, they are also woven together in many aspects and rely on each other to deliver effective and efficient healthcare. At the same time, each has its own unique challenges and opportunities when it comes to data-driven transformation – a topic we will explore in future posts and industry insights.

Charting a course for the future

The health and life sciences industries play an indispensable role in society, and the choices leaders make today will shape the future of healthcare for generations to come. As we navigate this era of transformation, the insights from the CGI Voice of Our Clients research provide a clear roadmap for success.

Our research emphasizes that data is at the heart of this transformation. By effectively leveraging data, healthcare and life sciences organizations can unlock significant value, improve patient outcomes, and drive innovation. This involves harnessing the power of digital transformation to gather and analyze data, implementing robust data governance and security measures, and using AI responsibly to extract actionable insights. Ultimately, a strong data foundation enables informed decision-making, personalized care, streamlined operations, and the development of new therapies and treatments.

CGI believes that data-driven transformation is essential for the future of health and life sciences. By embracing data, organizations can improve patient care, reduce costs, and drive innovation.

I'm excited to share our insights on how data-driven transformation can benefit your organization. Contact me to learn more and discover additional insights related to health and life sciences from the 2024 CGI Voice of Our Clients.