'Patient journey' propels hospital's digital transformation

Companies are hard at work redefining their relationships with customers in the digital economy -- and so are healthcare systems. Boston Children's Hospital is among them, investing resources into how it can improve the "patient journey." To do that, the hospital is attempting to level data silos as well as build new processes and partnerships to improve the patient experience both within and outside its four walls. "Our thesis is that patients really expect the same service that consumers expect when they interact with the digital world," said John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's and a professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. In CIO lingo, Brownstein is talking about digital transformation, where data is not just a byproduct of treating patients, but a prime driver in making the patient experience more efficient and in building patient-facing applications that could deepen the hospital-patient relationship.