A people-centric approach powers successful digital transformations in healthcare

Digital transformation is a high priority for C-suite executives at healthcare organizations, and a dizzying array of new technologies in a growing market is beckoning. But to succeed, leaders must be able to meld the use of technology with a people-first mindset and embrace their people focus in a systematic, measurable manner.

If they move successfully in this direction, healthcare leaders will be able to use the latest technology to both retain and recruit workers, but they will first have to overcome some challenges as the following data shows.

McKinsey research suggests that almost 90% of health system executives believe that digital and AI transformation is a high or top priority for their organization, though 75% indicated that budget constraints and issues with legacy systems were hampering achievement of technology goals.^[1]

Troubling too is the lack of investment in automation by many health systems, according to a recent Kaufman Hall survey, which also showed that where technologies have been adopted, 45% of leaders report only moderate optimization while 35% cite minimal optimization.^[2]

That said, hospitals and health systems are planning to invest in AI systems and products. In the latest HFMA Outlook Survey, conducted in June 2024, almost one-third of respondents said they plan to invest in AI between June 2025 and December of 2025. This investment is likely to grow as more than 80% of HFMA survey respondents agreed that AI is the next major development to impact hospitals and health systems.

In the past few years, healthcare leaders have not only struggled with investment and adoption of new technology, but also have faced workforce headaches.

In a Kaufman Hall survey, 66% of health system respondents said that they had run at less than full capacity at some time over the past year because of staffing shortages and 63% said they were having a hard time meeting demand for physicians.^[3] The shortages of healthcare professionals are pushing up clinical wages and compensation packages.

In its 2024 workforce report, the American Hospital Association (AHA) predicted that “recruiting, training and retaining workers will be more challenging than ever” with the departure of nurses en masse and the majority of physicians considering an employment change.^[4]

AI and other digital technologies are positioned to address staffing crises and also to make care more accessible to patients, as shown by the rising use of telehealth and hospital-at-home programs.^[5] According to Statista, the global digital health market is expected to grow from almost $172 billion in 2024 to $258.3 billion in 2029, the largest segment being digital care and treatment.^[6]

“From telehealth and virtual nursing to artificial intelligence (AI) and beyond, technology plays a growing role in health care, both clinically and administratively,” wrote the AHA workforce report authors. “Investment in technology is crucial but requires thoughtful consideration of value and potential outcomes, given the ongoing financial pressures facing health systems.”

AI is a disruptive technology that will shift roles and workflows, commented Hugo Sarrazin, president, chief product and technology officer at UKG, an international company that provides HR, payroll and workforce management solutions.

“Organizational leaders must begin their digital transformation with an understanding of what business challenges are [a] priority to address as determined in their business strategy,” Sarrazin said. “The technology that is deployed must support that strategy.”

Prioritizing people

Across the business world, the importance of a people-first work culture is recognized for financial fringe benefits, including savings on hiring replacements, better employee productivity and improved customer service.^[7]

In the context of healthcare organizations, how people are treated is directly related to whether new technologies are adopted, making or breaking digital transformation efforts. Healthcare organization leaders today have two main priorities: workforce challenges and a digital strategy to address them, explained UKG.

The process of adopting new technology doesn’t happen overnight; technology needs to become part of the normal workflow, ideally eradicating non-value-added tasks from human work and garnering appreciation by users at all levels, said Nanne Murray Finis, chief nurse executive at UKG.

With a people-centric lens, healthcare executives have the ability to recognize different personas in their workforce, understanding the diversity in how information is taken in, then tailoring processes to accommodate specific needs, explained Sarrazin.

“It’s not one size fits all,” Sarrazin said. “People have different starting points and the way to the final destination may be slightly different.”

Technology is often built by and for knowledge workers when it should be more inclusive. People centricity means having a focus on all workers in an organization, Sarrazin said.

“Organizations must be focused on solving problems for the front line,” he explained.

Going slow and deliberately at the start

As you think about digital transformation and new models of care, spending time on the front end to get the right processes, feedback and change management plans in place serves organizations well, said Eric Wallis, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Henry Ford Health in Detroit. Team members should be consciously focused on a shared governance model to get the best outcomes with new projects, Wallis added.

“I love the concept of ‘going slow to go fast’,” Wallis said. “After the upfront planning — especially around change management — you can accelerate.”

Henry Ford Health chooses its technology partners carefully and is continuously looking at how to best use new enabling digital tools.

“The workforce is more mobile now,” Wallis said. “So how do we create models that allow for a more flexible workforce? We have to start thinking about meeting people where they are and how work fits in with the rest of their life,” Wallis said.

“We have to figure that out — or people will pick up and go look for places that are figuring that out,” Wallis added.

Winning the war for talent

Henry Ford Health has been in the process of implementing a virtual nursing care ICU across its hospitals in the last year and has noted reductions on key metrics like length of stay, days on ventilators, code blue events and mortality rates.

“We’re seeing some great results there and now we’re piloting a virtual nursing model in our general patient units,” Wallis said.

The organization integrates tools from UKG and other partners with its EPIC electronic health record system so that it’s a one stop shop for information for staff. Information is communicated to nurses through QR codes accessed at time clocks or nurses’ stations and pops up on staff mobile phones. Henry Ford is seeing lower rates of turnover in nursing staff and low vacancy rates across its health system compared to national averages.

“I would say we’re winning in the war for talent in a large part due to our enabling technology,” Wallis said.

Adam Gobin, assistant vice president at WellStar Health System in Atlanta, is also all too aware of competitive pressures to retain talent and how that ties in with well-planned and effective deployment of IT systems. WellStar is certified as a Great Place to Work, a program that allows organizations to measure and improve employee experiences. As part of its certification, WellStar got feedback from surveys that employees wanted a streamlined IT process and then introduced a single sign-on for users at all levels.

Feedback also showed that employees wanted more clarity on opportunities for career advancement, so WellStar decided to embed written individual development plans online as part of its annual review processes.

“It’s amazing transparency for a team member to see exactly what certifications they need to move on to the next role; exactly what competencies they need,” Gobin said.

Following staff feedback, WellStar incorporated several initiatives to help boost employee benefits and well-being — free therapy/mental health sessions, points and rewards for physical activity and mindfulness and a concierge service that runs errands for you whenever you want.

Aligning digital strategy with a people focus

Through its interactions with HR technology customers and C-suite executives at professional IT meetings, UKG saw the need for an easy-to-use framework for assessing alignment between people-centric goals and digital transformation efforts. Working with an industry advisory board, UKG’s Finis led the development of a People-Centric Maturity Model for Healthcare, which includes an eBook and self-assessment tool.^[8]

The model helps organizations bring their digital and people strategies into alignment and ensure a focus on outcomes.

“Ask yourself first, ‘What is the outcome I am trying to get to?’ And then: ‘How can technology or other methods get you there?’” Sarrazin said.

The 25-question survey takes under 10 minutes to complete and UKG recommends involvement of from three-to-five high-level executives.

“The purpose is to give a group of leaders an organizational perspective of how they all see people and technology aligning in their organization,” Finis said.

The survey homes in on five essential attributes:

• Strategy
• Technology
• People processes
• Process outcomes
• Data analysis and data visualization

For each attribute, there are suggested questions for discussion. For example, the section on technology asks whether training is designed to enhance daily workflows and increase productivity for all users. Based on responses, healthcare organizations are assigned a maturity score of 1-5 in various categories and curated recommendations are delivered to the participants.

Measuring outcomes

Interactive visualization tools tailored to your organization’s needs can help leaders digest large datasets and understand the impact of investments, including in digital transformation and virtual care.

Leaders in finance, information technology and clinical care should work together to determine the most appropriate metrics feasible to quantify and report on a consistent basis. Examples of metrics include the following:

• Operating margin
• Organizational efficiencies
• Use of new technologies by employees
• Staff turnover and vacancy rates
• Employee engagement scores
• Patient satisfaction
• Quality of care (e.g., mortality, length of stay)

“This framework along with the Great Place to Work methodology will help us to be able to develop and expand on our technology plan, our strategy, our people-centric activities and engagement,” Gobin said. “It also really helped us to financially quantify and create metrics around how we impact our employees and their satisfaction.”

For more information

To get your eBook copy and survey, visit www.ukg.com/resources/ebook/people-centric-maturity-model-healthcare-ebook. 

5 levels of people-centric maturity

Level 1: Initializing
No standards are in place. Inconsistency exists across the organization.

Level 2: Managing
A process is in place and activities are managed, but without insights.

Level 3: Configuring
A process is arranged with technology and people components are considered.

Level 4: Measuring
A process is defined and measured. Problem areas are identified and addressed.

Level 5: Optimizing
A process is continuously improved.

_{Source: People-Centric Maturity Model For Healthcare, UKG}

Key questions for people-centric technology planning

UKG recommends using the following questions to determine if an organization is ready to begin people-centric technology planning.

• Have you prioritized the top three-to-five people-centric operational initiatives for your organization? Do you have the right technology in place or in process to support those initiatives?
• Does your organization have a standardized change-management methodology that includes clear communications linking organizational goals to the implementation of the technology solution?
• Is there an assigned executive sponsor leading the initiative who can clearly articulate how the people-centric project connects to the larger vision and
  strategy of the organization?
• Is training designed to clearly address how specific technology solutions enhance daily workflows and increase productivity for all users?
• Is your process of gaining feedback from all users comprehensive and effective?

_{Source: People-Centric Maturity Model for Healthcare, UKG}

About UKG

At UKG, our purpose is people. We are on a mission to inspire every organization to become a great place to work through HCM technology built for all. More than 80,000 customers across all sizes, industries, and geographies trust UKG HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture cloud solutions to drive great workplace experiences and make better, more confident people and business decisions. With the world’s largest collection of people data, work data, and culture data combined with rich experience using artificial intelligence in the service of people, we connect culture insights with business outcomes to show what’s possible when organizations invest in their people. To learn more, visit ukg.com/healthcare.

_{This published piece is provided solely for informational purposes. HFMA does not endorse the published material or warrant or guarantee its accuracy. The statements and opinions by participants are those of the participants and not those of HFMA. References to commercial manufacturers, vendors, products, or services that may appear do not constitute endorsements by HFMA.}

---

^[1]. Eastburn, J., Fowkes, J., Kellner, K., “Digital transformation: Health systems’ investment priorities,” June 7, 2024, McKinsey & Company.

^[2]. 2023 state of healthcare performance improvement: Signs of stabilization emerge, Kaufman Hall, October 2023.

^[3]. Ibid.

^[4]. Providers betting big on future of hospital at home, American Hospital Association, accessed July 11, 2024.

^[5]. How AI can help hospitals strengthen their financial performance and reduce clinician burnout, Deloitte, accessed Sept. 26, 2024.

^[6]. Digital health – worldwide market data, Statista, accessed Sept. 26, 2024.

^[7]. Proppe, J., and Drake, J., “5 steps to build a great company culture that adds bottom-line value,” CFO Dive, July 9, 2024. 

^[8]. People Centric Maturity Model for Healthcare eBook, UKG, accessed Sept. 26, 2024.