How digital transformation in healthcare is like going onto TikTok

By Brian Biggs, InterSystems

In a recent Talking HealthTech video, I was asked to boil down my Digital Health Week presentation about the barriers to effective digital transformation to one key point that people could take away and implement in their own health systems.

The key point, in my experience, is understanding the difference between technical change and cultural change and that – while it might sound like a technical change – digital transformation is in fact a cultural change.

So, what’s the difference? Technical change is a relatively straight line. In my presentation, I used the analogy of an iPhone. You wake up in the morning and there’s an iOS update. It’s a bit frustrating – the screen looks a little different, the colours look a little funny – but by morning tea you’re OK with it and you’ve forgotten what the old version looked like.

That is technical change. It is a straight line and we are well versed in doing it.

Cultural change or adaptive change is a much more difficult journey. In my presentation I told the story about how my nieces and nephews were trying to get me off Facebook – because “Facebook’s not cool any more” – and go onto TikTok.

To go on that journey, you have to learn a few things: how to dance; how to sing; how to add music; and how to promote yourself. In my case, that’s a change that could take quite a few months – if not years, if you’ve heard my singing.

And then you get close to the end – or at least, you think you do – and my nephews and nieces say, “Actually, uncle, you’re too old for TikTok, it’s a waste of time.” And that’s also like the journey with digital transformation. Just when you think you are getting somewhere, a curve ball comes along and sets you back a bit.

So, just understanding what the technology is going to do and managing the technical change is the easy part. But managing the people and going through that journey with them and taking them with you is the most critical element to getting any transformation done.

If you’d like to know more about the difference between technical change and cultural change – and how healthcare providers can benefit from understanding that the digital transformation challenge is cultural, not technical – check out my in-depth article.

About the author

Brian Biggs is Director, Customer Relations and Sales, New Zealand for InterSystems, a creative data technology provider dedicated to helping customers solve the most critical scalability, interoperability and speed problems. Based in Auckland, Biggs leads the company’s New Zealand operations, providing local resources to a growing customer base and ensuring that InterSystems is responsive to their needs.