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Adaptability and Dynamism
Return to all trendsWhat is it?
Adaptability in health refers to the creation of flexible systems designed to anticipate and respond to future challenges. Unlike specific technologies applied to healthcare, adaptability is a system-wide capability made possible by technology, allowing healthcare systems to adjust seamlessly to changing demands and stressors.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant gaps in healthcare systems’ ability to adapt quickly to unforeseen challenges. Traditional healthcare models, built for stability and efficiency, often struggle to cope with rapid changes, leading to costly and disruptive overhauls. Adaptability aims to transform this by embedding flexibility into the core of healthcare systems.
Adaptability in healthcare involves changes across various dimensions:
- Physical Infrastructure: Repurposing health spaces, converting non-health spaces, and mobilizing care delivery.
- Digital Infrastructure: Investing in advanced technologies and maintaining cybersecurity without stifling flexibility.
- Organizational Structures: Promoting decentralized decision-making and fostering cross-functional teams.
Adaptability is closely linked with sustainability. Health systems must reduce their environmental impact while preparing for climate-related health challenges. Integrating sustainability into healthcare operations ensures that systems remain resilient and capable of delivering high-quality care in a rapidly changing world.
To future-proof healthcare, systems must be dynamic and adaptable across multiple dimensions. This approach ensures that healthcare can respond effectively to both immediate crises and the ongoing evolution of needs, technologies, and societal expectations.
Opportunities for impact
Technologies to support health system dynamism and adaptability have significant applications and implications at both the patient level and the infrastructure and operational management of the health system.
Here are some illustrative applications, possibilities and implications of these technologies across some of the key functions of the health system, using the system impact framework discussed in the report on page 16.
Actions 2024-2025
Fostering greater adaptability and dynamism in the health system is an urgent requirement – we do not know when the next system challenge will come, but we can rest assured that it will. We also know that the sustainability dimension of healthcare are going to remain a focus in public policy and beyond.
As such, we recommend that actors from across the health and technology ecosystems focus in 2024-25 on building the technology infrastructure of dynamism, carefully calibrating to provider and health system strategic goals and key areas. This work we recommend be undertaken collaboratively, with a focus on prototyping and learning.
As such, we recommend that actors from across the health and technology ecosystems focus in 2024-25 on building the technology infrastructure of dynamism, carefully calibrating to provider and health system strategic goals and key areas. This work we recommend be undertaken collaboratively, with a focus on prototyping and learning.
Healthcare providers
Foundations
- Maintain up-to-date 1-3year plans for the most likely stressors or shocks to the health system and the required adaptability response.
- Explore collaboration across the health system with a view to providing overflow capacity or workforce support in times of crisis.
- Check, maintain and protect patient data and system integrity from cyber threats.
- Conduct an audit of existing infrastructure functionality to identify options for multi-purpose use.
- Ensure different data systems can seamlessly share information.
- Establish clear policies and responsibilities for data management.
Activate
- Incorporate adaptable and resilient healthcare practices into continuing medical education requirements.
- Stay up-to-date with the latest medical research and technologies for remote patient care and mobile health delivery
- Proactively pilot or test flexible infrastructure configurations or functionalities that can deliver multi-purpose use or provide surge capacity.
- Design facilities that can be reconfigured quickly for different needs.
- Use patient data to continuously inform and adjust treatment plans.
Transform
- Budget for technical staff to improve data analysis and predictions, data management and integrity and cyber resilience.
- Maintain a rolling 1-3 year plan for the adaptability response that can be deployed in the event of emergencies or unforeseen surges in demand, that leverages the most up-to-date technologies and practices.
- Expand existing infrastructure to include mobile and remote assets
- Extend existing integrated care programs to include more patients and conditions.
- Expand remote, mobile and other dynamic care capabilities.
Technologists
Foundations
- Maintain up-to-date 1-3year plans for the most likely stressors or shocks to the health system and the required adaptability response.
- Explore collaboration across the health system with a view to providing overflow capacity or workforce support in times of crisis.
- Check, maintain and protect patient data and system integrity from cyber threats.
- Conduct an audit of existing infrastructure functionality to identify options for multi-purpose use.
- Ensure different data systems can seamlessly share information.
- Establish clear policies and responsibilities for data management.
Activate
- Incorporate adaptable and resilient healthcare practices into continuing medical education requirements.
- Stay up-to-date with the latest medical research and technologies for remote patient care and mobile health delivery
- Proactively pilot or test flexible infrastructure configurations or functionalities that can deliver multi-purpose use or provide surge capacity.
- Design facilities that can be reconfigured quickly for different needs.
- Use patient data to continuously inform and adjust treatment plans.
Transform
- Budget for technical staff to improve data analysis and predictions, data management and integrity and cyber resilience.
- Maintain a rolling 1-3 year plan for the adaptability response that can be deployed in the event of emergencies or unforeseen surges in demand, that leverages the most up-to-date technologies and practices.
- Expand existing infrastructure to include mobile and remote assets
- Extend existing integrated care programs to include more patients and conditions.
- Expand remote, mobile and other dynamic care capabilities.
Government & Policy Makers
Foundations
- Create policies that allow for- and make easier- rapid adaptation to health threats.
- Allocate funding to upgrade digital and physical infrastructure with adaptability features.
- Allocate resources for developing new technologies and practices that deliver dynamic capacity.
- Maintain up-to-date 1-3year plans for the most likely stressors or shocks to the health system and the required adaptability response.
- Explore collaboration across the health system with a view to providing overflow capacity or workforce support in times of crisis.
Researchers & Universities
Foundations
- Maintain up-to-date 1-3year plans for the most likely stressors or shocks to the health system and the required adaptability response.
- Explore collaboration across the health system with a view to providing overflow capacity or workforce support in times of crisis.
Activate
- Incorporate adaptable and resilient healthcare practices into continuing medical education requirements.
- Stay up-to-date with the latest medical research and technologies for remote patient care and mobile health delivery
- Proactively pilot or test flexible infrastructure configurations or functionalities that can deliver multi-purpose use or provide surge capacity.
- Design facilities that can be reconfigured quickly for different needs.
- Use patient data to continuously inform and adjust treatment plans.
Transform
- Budget for technical staff to improve data analysis and predictions, data management and integrity and cyber resilience.
- Maintain a rolling 1-3 year plan for the adaptability response that can be deployed in the event of emergencies or unforeseen surges in demand, that leverages the most up-to-date technologies and practices.
- Expand existing infrastructure to include mobile and remote assets
- Extend existing integrated care programs to include more patients and conditions.
- Expand remote, mobile and other dynamic care capabilities.
Augmented Intelligences
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the most talked-about trend in health technology, especially following the rise of consumer generative AI in 2023. However, AI is not a single entity but a collection of diverse subfields, technologies, and methods, ranging from machine learning (ML) and natural language processing to computer vision and robotics.
Simulation and Simulacra
As the boundary between the physical and digital worlds fades, new technologies are transforming how we interact with reality, particularly in healthcare. Extended Reality (XR), digital twins, and 3D printing are at the forefront of this change, allowing us to experiment, innovate, and enhance care without the constraints of the physical world.
Remote Patient Care
Remote Patient Care (RPC) leverages modern communication technologies and sensors to deliver healthcare services when the patient and provider are not in the same physical space. While the concept isn’t new, recent technological advancements have made RPC more effective, allowing patients to receive hospital-level care from the comfort of their homes.
Harnessing Biotechnology Breakthroughs
Throughout history, healthcare has advanced through groundbreaking scientific discoveries, such as antibiotics, DNA structure, and vaccines. These innovations have dramatically improved health outcomes and set the stage for modern advancements in biotech and deep science.