Kiwi hospitals: “Future-looking” principles for a hospital maturity model

Abstract

Hospitals are, for most human beings, the more visible, historical and futuristic, dramatic and hopeful, side of healthcare. Most hospitals today face criticisms for being too complex to navigate, too risky for elderly and frail people due to nosocomial infections and intolerably high rates of medical error. While seeing the future of hospitals is not possible it is likely that it will mean an ever-incensing use of technology. Changes in hospitals and their internal dynamic have a lot to do with digital health understood in a broader sense. Hospitals are “knowledge organizations”. To ensure the best response to the aspirations and raising challenges successful hospitals of the future will be those that combine four elements in an equilibrium. They need to be Knowledgeable, Intelligent, Wise and Interoperable. Managers will need to be more capable of funding the right investments to get to KIWI hospitals. The suggested KIWI framework can be applied as future-looking maturity model principles. The target is a future proof hospital capable of solving old problems and be ready for resilient responses, such as the ones 2020 has shown the world hospitals need and are needed for.