Beyond policy debates pre-pandemic, the overall focus for U.S. healthcare improvement generally centered on technology. Figuring out how to better digitalize the sector and leverage advances in computation and connectivity generates enormous investment and innumerable new products, tools, and services.

While modernization remains a driving concern, in the post-COVID-19 world, it should address an issue revealed to be critical: workflow.

A workflow is simply defined as the sequence of processes (industrial, administrative, etc.) through which work passes from initiation to completion. And by that definition, if there is any lesson we can already draw from this still-evolving health crisis, it’s that the U.S. healthcare system has some serious workflow problems.

The provision of healthcare requires both scientific rigor and a reliable system of support and oversight, but our existing methods for meeting those needs can impede delivery and derail effective function. The pandemic’s arrival in the U.S. surfaced a litany of conditions where healthcare workflow just doesn’t work.