The value of a digital operating room

The journey towards a completely digitized "Hospital 4.0" continues. Novel innovative technologies are constantly pushing their way into all areas of healthcare, not least into the high-performance centerpieces of hospitals – the operating rooms. By shifting the focus towards digitization and increasingly implementing digital O.R. solutions, hospitals aim to optimize, automate and interlink processes to leverage untapped potentials such as reducing bureaucracy and achieving time savings.

The operating area or even the individual operating room is characterized by a multi-disciplinary environment in which different user groups have different requirements regarding the equipment configuration. In order to generate deep insights into the hospitals' perspective and enhance customer understanding of the individual requirements, SKC followed a design-thinking approach using a range of methodological tools, which are particularly suitable in the presence of complex user environments. Thus, a profound understanding of the customer's status quo could be developed and the inpatient workflows as well as the challenges, requirements and attitudes of hospitals regarding digitization could be better understood.

In a first step, a detailed and multidimensional customer journey was mapped out to identify current procedures, interdependencies, pain points and gaps in the inpatient setting. In a second step, the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) was used to visualize and juxtapose the customer profile as well as the value proposition of a digital O.R. solution. The VPC is thus the basis for assessing the problem-solution-fit and the actual value of digital O.R. solutions from a user's position.

Overall, the survey results reveal that hospitals' demands can be primarily distinguished into two levels: the basic need for workflow enhancement of supportive processes and the individual need for discipline-specific digital solutions. Hence, every hospital might have slightly different demands, highlighting the importance for targeted customization by the medical device manufacturer. To successfully navigate through the large-scale digital disruption, open-platform concepts with a high degree of data security, consistently interoperable data integration meeting uniform standards and the active digital contribution towards patient-driven care become more and more important.

The detailed strategic project findings and derived implications for hospitals are outlined in a comprehensive whitepaper. The whitepaper especially provides recommendations for hospitals who prepare for as well as who are already realizing digital transformation and can serve as a guide for medical device manufacturers active in the field of digitization. If you would like to learn more about the project results and the identified customer value of digitization in the hospital setting, especially in the operating room, please feel free to request a free copy of the whitepaper below.

The presented project approach is a practical example of our work. SKC supports medical technology and pharmaceutical companies in the development of digital care solutions to create customer value and in the generation of suitable value stories by applying design-thinking methods.