We are living in a period of intense pressure on healthcare providers right around the world. The United Nations estimates that the global human population will increase by two billion in the next 30 years, peaking at 10.4 billion by the mid-2080s. And a rapidly increasing population means a growing dependence on healthcare facilities as that population ages.

At the same time, patients’ expectations of the clinical care they require has increased. They want hospital staff to know all about them before they walk in, have access to their data whenever they need it, be offered more advanced forms of care if they choose to take them, and be given timely communication about what comes next without needing to request it. For most healthcare systems, this is a very tall order.