From Digitization to Intelligence: Why the Banking Industry Must Go Further Than Healthcare’s HITECH-Era Transformation

By: Tricia Chitwood

The banking industry is undergoing a digital transformation that reminds me of the healthcare sector’s shift during the HITECH / Meaningful Use era - which I witnessed first-hand during my 8 years at a major US healthcare software company. Financial institutions have a chance to learn from what happened in healthcare - and avoid a decade of growing pains - by embracing a more modern, interoperable, intelligence-driven approach.

The banking industry today faces a convergence of pressures that make digital transformation inevitable: consumer expectations, fintech entrants, real-time payment rails, and rising fraud and compliance demands. But unlike healthcare in 2009, FIs are not being pushed by a single government mandate. They are being pushed by competitiveness itself.

This distinction matters. It creates space not only to digitize—but to modernize thoughtfully, with better architecture than the first wave of healthcare solutions.

What I’ve recognized is that healthcare digitized records, but not workflows - they didn’t actually improve staff or patient experiences. They recreated inefficient paper processes digitally, resulting in clinician burnout and little improvement in patient outcomes. 

The banking industry is now at a similar crossroads. Many digital-layer investments—mobile apps, online onboarding, digital wallets—are still powered by legacy processes and fractured data flows.

To create real transformation, FIs need infrastructure that:

• automates hidden operational steps

• enables multi-rail, multi-account product experiences

• unifies data across systems

• orchestrates real-time decisions

  
  

FIs should be looking for solutions that allow them to modernize without ripping out their cores or debit processors, avoiding this painful “Phase 1” healthcare endured.

Healthcare is still waiting for a breakthrough and many are pinning that on the shift from Electronic Medical Records (EMR) adoption to interoperability standards like HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. The banking industry needs a similar interoperable architecture—one that connects core systems, processors, digital channels, risk engines, and consumer data - enabling FIs to innovate at the product layer, not the infrastructure layer. 

Just as healthcare ended up consolidating around a few EMR platforms, the banking industry is on the verge of entering a post-fintech phase where institutions reject disconnected solutions in favor of systems that orchestrate experiences end-to-end.

FIs should look for platforms that reduce operational burden and allow them to launch new debit-based products across consumer segments without negotiating dozens of integrations or reengineering internal systems.

A transformation that isn’t just digital, but architectural.

Healthcare generated enormous digital data sets that took years to make useful. FIs can skip that lost decade by implementing platforms that:

• normalize data

• integrate data across systems

• use it to drive personalized financial wellness

• support automated operational decisions

FIs should be looking for solutions that provide actionable intelligence, not passive data.

If the banking industry follows the same trajectory as healthcare, modernization will be slow, fragmented, and burdensome.

But institutions that invest in interoperability, automation, and platform architectures can bypass that entire period. They can move directly from digitization → intelligence → differentiated experiences.

Platforms make this possible by enabling:

• innovation without core replacement

• product modernization without operational strain

• real-time intelligence without data reconstruction

• consumer-centric design without vendor sprawl

The banking industry doesn’t need a Meaningful Use program.  It needs meaningful modernization.  And unlike healthcare in 2009, the technology to do it already exists.