What is the role of a consultant in the digital healthcare era?

Consulting partners can guide laboratories, hospitals and healthcare institutions to deliver faster, more reliable results, which ultimately benefits physicians and patients.

Roche Healthcare Consulting teams empower their customers to be the trustworthy experts that physicians need, by delivering personalized advice at every step – from first assessment, through implementation and beyond for continuous improvements.

Building on our proud heritage of clinical analyzers, Roche Diagnostics leverages expert teams to meet the evolving needs of laboratories, hospitals and healthcare institutions as a reliable partner, supporting its customers in executing change and “doing now what patients need next.”

Laboratories and healthcare institutions are still learning how best to make sense of all the data that this new era of diagnostic digitalization is producing.

Electronic lab notebooks, laboratory information management systems, business analytics and clinical decision support solutions have all contributed to a surge in the digital information output of laboratories, creating new complexities around data management.

“As organizations continue to further their digitization efforts, it is clear that finding ways to most efficiently leverage the data and knowledge generated internally is a strong driving force,” a recent article in Lab Manager stated. “As some barriers to data access are removed through solutions such as data lakes, others are unwittingly erected, with siloed access to organizational analytics data and dashboards.”¹

So, there are opportunities here for digitalliterate consultants to help laboratories make the most of their advanced analytics tools, generate insights and support in data interpretation. However, healthcare remains notorious for its comparatively slow uptake of new technology.

We approach working with our customers as a genuine partnership, with an equal investment from both parties in working toward a common goal. Because Roche Diagnostics supplies the infrastructure for diagnostics laboratories as well as managing transformation and ensuring that our customers make the most of their digital solutions, we are committed to long-lasting relationships that can grow and endure for decades.

These continuous relationships allow Roche to define key performance indicators (KPIs), set milestones and short-, medium-, long-term goals, monitor progress and interpret the results for our customers.

In these working relationships, Lean is an ongoing process that can be delivered as part of Roche’s long-term toolkit to help identify waste and increase efficiency, including help with staffing.

The digital consultancy services provided by Roche Healthcare Consulting are led by science, not hyperbole. Our consultants never overpromise. Our philosophy as a company is to be humble and dedicated, and to never attempt to sell anything that we cannot provide. That integrity contributes to building a trusting relationship between consultant and customer, where the customer can feel confident that their best interests are being taken care of.

We meet our customers on their journey where they are. To succeed at this, consultants in the digital healthcare era must be empathetic and open-minded, we must be innovative and brave, and we must help our customers to be brave too.⁸