SINGAPORE
-�Media OutReach�-�26 November 2018�-�Healthcare organizations embracing digital
transformation have seen improvements of between 14% to 21% in patient outcomes
and disease prevention, as well as patient experience, integrated care
coordination, cost reductions, and innovation of care teams, according to new findings
released from a joint Microsoft-IDC Asia/Pacific study.

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The 159 respondents surveyed for "Unlocking the Economic Impact of
Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific[1]"identified those five areas as benefiting the most from digital
transformation initiatives. They also expect to reap further enhancements of at
least 30% by 2020, with integrated care coordination expected to see the
biggest gain.

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"Facing increasing patient expectations, rapid advancement of
technology and strong emerging competitors, healthcare organizations need to
progress faster and accelerate their digital transformation journey to develop
new healthcare services. Healthcare leaders can no longer afford to just focus
on basic optimization of operational processes. There is an imminent need for
them to go beyond that and transform the entire business holistically. By doing
so, they can ensure that they remain competitive in the industry as patient
care continuum becomes increasingly important," said Regional Business Lead, Worldwide
Health, Microsoft Asia.

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Transforming Care Continuum with
Data is Key in the Digital Transformation Journey

"More healthcare organizations are recognizing that there is a shift
away from hospital-based care. People are increasingly focused on improved healthy
living and preventive care, where a combination of smart medical devices, IoT, cloud,
data analytics and AI plays a crucial role", said Keren.

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"According to the Study, digital transformation could potentially
double the improvements of integrated care coordination by 2020. It means that
we can expect a substantial enhancement in intelligent healthcare continuum,
including preventive care, diagnosis and treatment, home and elderly care in
future."

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The Study shows
that healthcare leaders in the region are strongly focused on patients'
healthcare journeys, as they have identified three patient-related metrics as
their top digital transformation key performance indicators (KPIs):

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1.����
Process and
Service Effectiveness: How an organization is improving upon its
existing process and service delivery to ensure patients are engaged
effectively

2.����
Patient Advocacy: Whether patients
are referring their preferred healthcare organization to their peers, or are
advocating their preferred service provider

3.����
Data
Capitalization: How an organization is leveraging data within the
organization to develop new products and services to improve healthcare
delivery

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"Data has become
an increasingly important asset to organizations across different industries
including healthcare. Healthcare leaders of today have already identified that
data capitalization, or how data is being used as a capital asset within the
organization is one of their key focus areas and their KPIs. As a result, more
healthcare organizations are investing in core technologies such as big data
analytics as well as emerging technology such as AI, Cognitive and Robotics to
fully assess and utilize the available data," said Victor
Lim, Vice President IDC Asia/Pacific.

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Keren added: "Data is key to develop new services, and
to improve the patient care continuum. As healthcare organizations collect data from basic administration
processes as well as patients' healthcare records in a depersonalized way, the
amount of latent and active data available for harnessing is immense. This will
grow even faster with mass adoption of smart medical devices and IoT. To win
the digital transformation race, healthcare leaders must identify the best
approach to leverage technology to enhance healthy living and preventive care,
diagnosis and treatment, along with home and elderly care. Also, healthcare
players need to share these
approaches effectively across industry professionals and caregivers in a
secured way to achieve better health outcomes for a patient."

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AI as the next frontier of healthcare
transformation

Respondents from the Study identified the emergence of disruptive
technology as a top business concern today. The rise of Artificial
Intelligence, for example, will shift the paradigm of care for healthcare
organizations in the short term.

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In fact, by 2019, IDC
predicts that 40% of digital transformation
initiatives will be supported by Artificial Intelligence/ Cognitive
capabilities[2], providing timely,
critical insights for new operating and monetization models in Asia Pacific
(excluding Japan).

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In India, the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases is high and it is
among one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity. As such, Microsoft's
AI Network for Healthcare recently teamed up with Apollo
Hospitals to embark on a digital transformation journey in
developing and deploying new machine learning models to predict patient risk
for heart disease and assists doctors on treatment plans. This is part of Microsoft
Healthcare NExT aimed to accelerate healthcare innovation
through artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

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"This
collaboration with Microsoft's path-breaking technologies like Artificial
Intelligence and Machine Learning will help better predict, prevent and manage
heart disease in the country. Cardiac disease is amongst India's leading causes
of mortality and morbidity, which is exacting a toll on the health and
well-being of our citizens. Given our large clinical database and significant
pool of clinical talent, the partnership will help impact the global burden of
cardiac disease. While we commence this in India, we will validate the
algorithms and work towards creating a global consortium to tackle multiple
conditions in cardiovascular disease," said Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing
Director, Apollo Hospitals.

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For any healthcare organization to adopt an effective digital
transformation strategy, they would need to consider three key steps:

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1.����
Developing a
digital culture: Organizations need to address organizational
shifts required for successful implementation of digital transformation
initiatives. This include moving away from siloes and encouraging use of data
across all processes internally and externally to develop a patient-centric
culture. This is where healthcare organizations can work on improving
integrated care coordination to ensure a seamless process of data sharing with
various parties.

2.����
Capitalizing on
data: Healthcare organizations need to understand and unlock the potential
of data in developing differentiated patient experiences. By tapping into the
data, healthcare organizations can enhance existing care services or create new
revenue streams that will help to improve healthcare continuum. As such,
healthcare organizations need to focus on data capitalization as one of the
newer KPIs to track progress and to measure performance on their digital
transformation efforts.

3.����
Embrace new
technologies: Big data analytics, Artificial Intelligence and
even augmented or mixed reality will play an integral role in the
transformation of the healthcare industry. When implemented, they have the
capabilities to unlock new patient insights and scenarios which helps shape
service delivery models. Another example would be how emerging technologies can
help develop virtual medical services to increase patient access to medical
services.

To learn more about Microsoft in Healthcare, visit https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-us/industries/health/

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About Microsoft

Microsoft
(Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an
intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every
person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.