As the UK health sector struggles to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients are experiencing record waiting times and missing out on vital health checks. Also, patients who have seen a rapid rollout of innovations during the pandemic have growing expectations for faster and more efficient care.
Dr. Geeta Nayyar, Chief Medical Officer, Salesforce, believes that technology can help healthcare institutions here and globally navigate this turbulent period.
“Technology is not a silver bullet. It is about finding operational efficiencies and thinking about what can be automated to maximize productivity and reduce costs. Ultimately, it allows doctors to be doctors And it makes sure patients get the care they need,” says Dr. Nayyar.
As the world population grows and ages, the public health sector is faced with new challenges daily. Technology is key, says Dr Nayyar, to ensure the sector can respond effectively. If public sector providers fail to innovate and invest in digital, the gap in the breadth and quality of services provided is likely to widen.
POLITICO Studio caught up with Dr. Nayyar to learn more.
Read our other interviews in this series Reimagining the future of public services And placing trust at the heart of public services,
Politician Studies: What does your role as Chief Medical Officer at Salesforce look like on a day-to-day basis?
Geeta Nayyar: This spans anything from informing our product and market strategy in our health care business to talking with customers and ensuring their success. And internally, being an ambassador and a resource for our employees and talking transparently with them about health issues.
For example, one major initiative I helped lead during COVID-19 was co-writing Salesforce’s Health and Safety Playbook We partnered with The C-Suite to provide the most up-to-date guidance on how to put together a safe and effective event, with our Chief People Officer and our Chief Marketing Officer demonstrating how.
Everything comes down to science. That’s how we communicated our protocols, our testing, our vaccination policies – and went out of our way as an ambassador to instill confidence that Salesforce is a tool that can be successfully implemented across healthcare.
Today, every company is now a health care company. Salesforce leaders have made significant progress in employee health and wellness programs. This will continue as we go through difficult times. Re-prioritizing health is something we’re seeing with our customers as well — regardless of their line of business.
PS: How have clients in the health care sector used technology to drive resilience and innovation after the pandemic?
GN: COVID-19 has accelerated healthcare innovations and accelerated digital transformation. Now, citizens are expressing their preference for accessible digital services. Technology has facilitated citizen engagement, provision of reliable health information and opened up new communication channels between doctors and patients. Having better access through virtual care, whether you are in a rural or urban environment, has really changed the patient journey.
As happened with every company, the pandemic forced Salesforce to re-imagine the support and services we provide in the context of our healthcare customers. For example, we introduced work dot com, which helped organizations respond to the pandemic before vaccines were available. Then, when vaccines became available, we launched vaccine cloud, which supported uniform vaccine administration around the world. we posted later security cloud To help people come together safely at events and in the office.
For Salesforce, the pandemic has made us more relevant than ever in the healthcare space. Ultimately, it’s about automating the things we can and should do, and increasing operational efficiencies so doctors can practice medicine first and foremost and patients can have a human connection at the right points .
PS: What are the current challenges to public health care – and how can technology solutions help navigate them?
GN: Due to limited capacity and workforce in the UK at this time waiting times have increased. As a result, people are not getting the care they need most. They are deprived of life saving preventive health check up. Also, patient expectations have been on the rise since the adoption of technology tools during the pandemic.
Britain’s aging population threatens to put even more pressure on the NHS in the coming years. Technological solutions that create efficiency, help control costs and enable health care professionals to treat patients more effectively will help reduce this risk.
One of the biggest issues – and not just in the UK, but around the world – is mental health. And it affects productivity, because if you’re not happy and you’re suffering from depression or anxiety, you’re not at your best. it is it is estimated that one in four Globally people will suffer from mental health issues in their lifetime with depression alone Costs the global economy $210.5 billion per year,
Healthcare and life sciences organizations everywhere need connected data and intelligence, as well as robust integration and automation tools, to help their workforce deliver connected, personalized care to patients in real time. This is extremely important because we live in an age of misinformation and misinformation in health.
PS: How is Salesforce currently supporting public sector health care? What specific technology solutions are its customers deploying to address these challenges?
GN: salesforce Patient 360 for Health Innovations are exactly as they sound. They draw on the Salesforce ecosystem of products to enable providers and life science and medtech companies to provide a complete view of every patient while putting them at the center of everything. This automation makes patient profiles more accessible, provides a better experience and ultimately leads to better outcomes.
With our behavioral health solutions, for example, healthcare teams can personalize each step of the patient journey. It provides access to mental and behavioral health services more efficiently to help address behavioral health disparities.
Advanced Therapy Management helps streamline and maintain complete visibility around the entire advanced therapy treatment processes for patients – from referrals and multiple appointment scheduling to drug formulation and administration – by connecting everyone involved in a patients medical journey.
What’s more, Salesforce Genie for Healthcare integrates real-time clinical data, such as past and current medications, and non-clinical data, such as social determinants of health, to build a more comprehensive patient profile.
We continue to view health care as a place to grow. Over 190 countries use our product to schedule vaccinations for millions of people. We were very much a part of the solution to COVID-19 from a civilian perspective globally. In today’s uncertain economic environment, our research shows that healthcare and life sciences organizations using Salesforce are seeing an average of 25 percent savings on operating costs.
We want to be an extraordinary leader in health care, and my role is testament to that.
PS: What do you think the future of public health care will look like and what will be the role of Salesforce?
GN: What we’ve done for public health is laying the groundwork for the future and building the technology infrastructure to be ready for the next crises. Digital transformation is going to be key to this. We see salesforce customer 360 As central to the future of public health and infrastructure.
We also think it is important for the public and private sectors to work together. The pandemic has been a great example of the need for cross-sector collaboration. It takes a village, and personalizing the patients’ experience — with technology that builds a 360-degree view of the person and connects disparate data systems — has become that much more important.
The pandemic proved that this industry has what it takes to evolve to changing customer needs and expectations. Why not harness that momentum?
Salesforce is committed to creating new healthcare technologies for customers that can solve the rapidly changing front-line challenges of patient care and help our customers scale effectively and efficiently.
As virtual healthcare evolves and new healthcare needs arise, our core technologies are more relevant than ever.