CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - Banking is one of the most aggressively digital, data-focused, and analytics and AI-oriented industries in the world, and healthcare one of the least. Many reasons might be advanced for this disparity, but they do not justify healthcare organizations continuing with their much less advanced status. In this regard, healthcare organizations can and should move in the direction of banks in the future, and those that do so earlier will be more successful. To do otherwise is to invite competitors from outside the healthcare industry to enter it with more digital and data-centric business models. 

Several aspects of digitization and intelligence are described below, with details as to how banks and healthcare organizations have addressed them.

Banks have multiple channels for transacting business. Unlike many healthcare providers, banks have already seen their future, which is to become increasingly digital and decreasingly facilities-based. There are still bank branches and headquarters of buildings for specialized transactions and to house employees, but the core of the banking experience for many customers is already the online bank account, the bank website, the chatbot, and the mobile app. Most channels and transactions are available 24/7. The industry has succeeded at creating anytime, anyplace any channel banking that allows customers to go about their financial business with convenience and flexibility.

Healthcare is still heavily focused on hospitals and doctors’ offices, although the industry has made some progress. Pharmacies and grocery stores increasingly have clinics in the United States, and many providers have online portals. In China and Southeast Asia, digital healthcare applications (apps) have made strong inroads, but less so in other regions. Home healthcare around the world is increasingly facilitated by connected monitoring devices and wearables, but these are not gene