“As a Service, or XaaS (Anything as a Service) offerings provide endpoints for customers/consumers to interface with which are usually API driven, but can commonly be controlled via a web console in a user's web browser”
The pace of change in modern life is incredible. Megatrends that emerged in the early 2000’s have developed to maturity in many areas of our lives. The pervasive use of handheld smartphones, which are in reality powerful computers and the use of the internet for almost every part of our daily lives, such as banking, shopping, insurance, government services like taxation, utilities and almost everything else, are all XaaS solutions. XaaS companies like Netflix, PayPal and Spotify have had a transformative impact on their respective markets.
Synergy Research estimate the enterprise XaaS revenue passed $100 billion in Q1 of 2019 and the market has continued to grow at 30% per annum showing itself to be recessession resistant. Gartner projected the cloud services industry to expand exponentially through 2022 with revenue touching $143 billion. By 2023 86% of businesses are forecast to run entirely on XaaS, utilising the undoubted benefits of scalability, centralised security and cost savings.
One element of our daily lives that is ready for the same kind of digital transformation is healthcare, and specifically in secondary care provided by hospitals. Although great strides have been made by NHSx - many services can now be performed on-line accelerated by the necessity of the pandemic response - what we have in 2021 is very far from the polished experience we have all come to expect. As virtual consultations are not currently ideal there is a fear that many clinicians will revert to what they know - face to face consultations – but with the backlog of patients is this realistic?
One of the forecast trends for 2021 is the further development of XaaS products within vertical markets, creating targeted applications that address very specific requirements.
OX.DH is at the very forefront of this trend, offering Healthcare as a Service through a comprehensive suite of fully cloud based solutions, based on a proven technology stack, underpinned by Microsoft technology (the world’s largest SaaS provider).
Our horizontal components (OX.waiting room, OX.patient consent, …) provide incremental improvements to existing services. These serve as stepping stones to strategic healthcare digitalization that form part of our vertical pathways (OX.assisted reproduction, OX.general practice, OX.virtual pharmacy, OX.clinical pathology and more). Hospitals can choose to start to build out HaaS services horizontally by service or vertically by clinical specialism, knowing that eventually it will join together. Our commitment to open standards encourages integration across the healthcare ecosystem to achieve better outcomes.
The ability to build on legacy systems using Open APIs allows healthcare providers to leverage the ROI of their existing software and process investments but accessed through a modern, digital interface. These also provide a platform for the future, so that when legacy systems reach the end of their functionality rather than the painful process of re-platforming for users, the interface evolves naturally, overtime through ongoing updates. Better for patients, better for practitioners.
“Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way.” – Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, one of the planet’s biggest SaaS providers.
From initial patient consent information gathering, appointment reminders, virtual clinics, integration with existing systems for diagnostics and pharmaceuticals, our powerful solutions provide the complete end-to-end experience for patients and practitioners, significantly streamlining the entire process, with full auditability and data security baked into our native cloud applications.
Whereas XaaS products generally have a niche application, Healthcare as a Service – as we see it - is a fully integrated set of services that can be scaled from a small clinic through to a hospital or whole NHS area. More than a niche cloud based service it has the capability to transform digital healthcare sector, creating the kind of consistent, seamless user experience that we have all come to expect.